


Warmth in Winter

by Autumn_Llleaves



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Forced Marriage, Post-Divorce, Slow Romance, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2018-04-06 19:37:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 39,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4234119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Autumn_Llleaves/pseuds/Autumn_Llleaves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winter has come, the cruelest one in ages, and many tragedies have wrecked Westeros. Daenerys attacks King's Landing, but not everyone is sure she'll be a better queen than the previous one. Sansa Stark, obeying her sense of duty, leaves her beloved Sandor to ask her husband's permission for an annulment, but gets stuck in the city due to the horrible snowstorms. Meanwhile, Gregor a.k.a. Robert Strong finally dies thanks to Tyrion's dragon, leaving behind his last wife, a broken and miserable creature who believes herself to belong now to Gregor's victor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Husband and Wife

Tyrion Lannister, the rightful Lord of Casterly Rock, the second dragonrider in many decades, had a cold.

Quite simple. Flying a dragon was amazing, but without due precautions you’d quickly be frozen in the strong wind. Queen Daenerys, surprisingly, wasn’t affected – but then she was a Targaryen, with the blood of ancient Valyrian dragonlords in her veins. Tyrion was a humble little mortal, and so it happened that he was sitting in a tent, drinking hot honeyed milk and wearing three thick scarfs, when Daenerys was busy conquering King’s Landing.

An enormous white head poked into the tent.

“No,” _sneeze_ , “riding today,” _cough_ , “my friend. Unlike you,” _coughing fit_ , “I cannot,” _sneeze_ , “keep myself warm,” _cough_ , “up in the air,” _sneeze_ , “without a good many furs.”

Viserion whined.

“You’d better,” _cough,_ “stay a little back,” _sneeze_. “A coughing dragon,” _sneeze,_ “will be a danger,” _cough_ , “to rival the Others.”

The beast seemed to understand, and stepped back. Tyrion heard his wings flapping as Viserion went to exercise in flying by himself.

Tyrion sneezed and threw away the fourth handkerchief.

_Veeery fitting. Here I was dreaming of appearing on dragonback in front of all these people who used to laugh at me…_

“You have a visitor, my lord,” his manservant, a thin elderly man from Astapor, all wrapped in several fur coats, informed him.

“Who is it?” Tyrion coughed. “Aren’t all of them,” _sneeze_ , “doing battle with the Queen?” He took another sip of the milk, hoping at least to speak normally before the visitor.

“It’s a strange lady.”

“What lady?”

“A Westerosi lady, my lord.”

_Dumb as a trunk._

“It would be _unusual_ if there was a strange lady from Yi Ti around here,” Tyrion croaked. “Fine, Azen, show her in.”

The lady too was wearing a fur coat – but she didn’t look like an overwrapped parcel in it. No, indeed, it fitted her perfectly. _A Northerner, then._ As she raised her hood, Tyrion whistled in surprise.

“My lord,” his wife smiled.

“Sansa,” he said. “What a meeting.”

Her eyes darted to the jug with milk, then to his scarfs.

“You’re ill, my lord,” she said worriedly and fumbled in her pockets. “I have here some herbs that might help,” true, she handed him several packets with dried leaves. “These frosts are very dangerous, especially after coming directly from Essos.”

“Sansa!” Tyrion quaked. “Don’t act as if,” _sneeze_ , “you are a little devoted wife,” _cough_ , “and we haven’t seen each other for mere days or so. I won’t believe,” _cough_ , “that you came here,” _sneeze,_ “to act the healer.”

She petted his thick hair – an odd gesture for the Sansa Stark he knew. He looked at her inquiringly. _Changed pretty much since I last saw her. How old is she now – sixteen, seventeen? She looks so worn out. Her hands are different – they’re not as delicate as they used to be. She is so thin._

“I’ve notified Queen Daenerys of my existence,” she said. “I sent her a raven, declaring for her.”

“Good,” Tyrion smiled and coughed. After a while, Sansa tried again:

“I am – I am sorry, my lord, for how I’ve treated you before. You deserve better.”

“Now, my child, it’s not your fault,” he croaked. “You were in a terrible condition these days. Speaking of which – are you sure you are better now?”

“Much better,” she nodded eagerly. _Ah, I perceive the main change. She is peaceful. No struggles and suffering. A wonder – in our troubled days._

“So, what brings you to,” _sneeze_ , “your lawful husband?”

“My lord,” she sighed. “I wanted to ask for an annulment.”

 _Are you saying you haven’t done it in all our years of separation? You could have had a permission from any septon or septa – anyone could prove you’ve been untouched. Just as dutiful as before,_ he concluded.

“Sansa, dear, you came here just to tell me this? You can have one any moment, I,” _cough_ , “assure you.”

“It would have been dishonest to obtain annulment without your permission,” she explained seriously. “Would you want me to prepare the herb mixture for you?”

“If you,” _sneeze,_ “want, of course.”

She went to work at once, putting the kettle to boil, cutting the leaves quickly and efficiently. Tyrion marveled at the surrealistic situation – his wife, who had deserted him and now appeared out of the blue and asked to annul the marriage, was preparing him a medicine. A part of him wanted to be cautious – how did he know he should trust her? _She has no reason to kill me. I am willing to let her go. The girl’s no poisoner anyway._

“How are you doing, Sansa?” _cough._ “My adventures aren’t a secret,” _sneeze_ , “since I’m Daenerys’s advisor,” _sneeze_ , “but what of you?”

“Oh, I’ve had been through things too,” and a painful shadow lay across her face. “I’ve seen the Vale nobility die out, practically all of it. In this winter, the impregnability of our land became a curse. We had no food. No wood. No nothing. Caught between the Others, the sea, King’s Landing with its mad queen and the Mountains of the Moon.”

“How did you,” _cough_ , “end up in the Vale in the first place?”

“Baelish,” she whispered. “But it doesn’t matter now. It was – it was horrible, I’ll never forget it – the starved people, like skeletons but _still alive_ , begging me for bread. I escaped with Great-Uncle Brynden and Mya Stone, King Robert’s bastard girl – the ones who still retained some resemblance to human. We’ve tried to cross the Mountains.”

She took the kettle off the fire and poured the water onto the herbs.

“Now fifteen minutes to brew,” she murmured. “Well, you know the Mountains. Great-Uncle fell from an icy cliff… and only a day later, a wild tribe caught the two of us… Mya and I were taken by the chief.”

Tyrion took her hand sympathetically. _So the annulment won’t be that easy. You are not a maiden anymore._

“Mya saved me. The chief took a fever only a week later, and she said she could save him – on the condition he stopped forcing _me_. As for herself, she… she was content to stay like this. In truth. She was well liked by these wild people. I traveled with them as a prisoner for a while more, until I managed to escape. By a sheer miracle I was able to get to Saltpans, where I worked as a healer for about a year.”

“How did no one recognize you?” Tyrion croaked.

“Hair,” Sansa said simply. “It was dyed dark. Besides – who would expect Lady Lannister to turn up in the guise a poor healer in a provincial town?”

He gave a feeble laugh, which quickly turned into coughing. With a professional gesture Sansa adjusted his scarfs and poured him another cup of honeyed milk.

“It’s getting cold,” she said, touching the jug. “I must warm it.”

“What are you,” _cough_ , “planning to do as we annul our wedlock?” _sneeze._ “Back to Saltpans?”

“Oh no, I’ve had enough,” Sansa shivered. “I will marry.”

_That’s why she came to seek annulment. Her dutiful soul could stand separation, but not bigamy._

“I hope,” _sneeze_ , “it will turn better than,” _cough_ , “with your previous admirers.”

“Thank you,” she smiled. “Actually, that’s the second thing I wished to ask you…” she hesitated.

“What? Sansa, you can be sure,” _sneeze,_ “I have nothing against you marrying again.”

“Not of that…” she went silent once more. “I think – I will tell you the rest of my story.”

“Please do,” he sneezed.

“So, I worked in Saltpans, and they told me that the town had been repeatedly attacked by Sandor Clegane, who killed many people and raped women. I didn’t believe it – I knew him enough to see he won’t kill innocent people without a reason. And he will never lower himself to rape. People said it was him only because the attacker wore his helm.

“I tried to clear his name, but few of them believed me – of course, the healer girl Alayne couldn’t know about _the mad dog of Saltpans,_ it was the stuff Sansa Stark could know, but I was afraid of revealing myself. I felt much safer as Alayne. After all, I was less than a hundred miles away from King’s Landing, where Cersei wanted my head.

“One day a septon met me and offered me to work at a hospital on the Quiet Isle. They lacked good healers there, and the hospital was full – they took everyone, disregarding their status and loyalties.

“I accepted immediately – as I’ve said, I was fearful of staying so near to King’s Landing, and an island, a place of the Faith at that, was better than Saltpans. The septon – Meribald was his name – brought me there. The hospital was large indeed, but with only two healers – the Elder Brother of the Isle and an old peasant woman. They were both terribly exhausted, and I did help them a great deal.”

Sansa paused to pour him a glass of her mixture:

“Drink it, my lord. It will do you good.”

Tyrion sipped it gratefully.

“Keep it warm, and drink one glass a day. It lessens the fever and softens the cough.”

“Thank you,” he quaked.

“Coming back to the story… About two days after I came there, one of the patients died. A young girl, raped and beaten to a bloody mess by some bandits – she was too far gone when she was brought there by the Isle brothers. Rillen (that other healer woman) and I washed the poor thing’s body and prepared her for burial. Several brothers carried the coffin, Septon Meribald performed the ceremony, and I insisted on attending it. Just, well, becahse I’ve been with the girl through her last moments, and she’s been so innocent and trusting despite everything and thanked me so fondly till the very end…” Sansa rubbed off a tear.

“As the coffin was lowered and fresh earth piled on it and a tablet put there with the girl’s name, I raised my eyes from it and suddenly noticed the man who had dug the grave.”

“Well?” Tyrion asked as she paused again.

“It was Sandor Clegane,” Sansa said finally, deep blush coloring her cheeks. “He had been hiding on the Isle for several years – the Elder Brother found him, when he was badly wounded, and nursed him to health. He had been a gravedigger since then.”

Tyrion could guess where this was getting. He remembered how longingly the Hound gazed at Sansa, how he tried to protect the girl…

“You have lain with him,” he said, more roughly than he intended, but then his coarse voice didn’t help matters. Sansa blushed further.

“We want to marry. I wish to ask you to issue an official pardon for him. I’m afraid the Queen won’t like it – Sandor’s brother killed Rhaegar’s son…”

“And her own brother was a maniac,” Tyrion finished, blowing his nose. “And my brother killed her father.”

“S-she will grant a pardon?” Sansa whispered in disbelief.

“She will. As soon as she’s,” _sneeze_ , “finished there,” he pointed in the direction of King’s Landing. “Is Clegane with you?”

“Sandor’s at the Isle. I came here with Septon Meribald. Sandor wanted to accompany me, but I didn’t know what sort of welcome we could have. I insisted he should stay somewhere safe.”

“In that case, I will order Azen – that’s the old idiot you’ve seen at the entrance – to prepare a tent for you. When we have an annulment, I shall bring you to the Isle on Viserion’s back – it’s too risky for you to go on foot.”

Only when he finished did he realize he hadn’t coughed or sneezed through the whole speech.

“I’m better!” he said incredulously. “Better! Sansa, thank you so much!”

“This mixture does wonders,” Sansa said, trying to look modest, and patted his back. “You’ll be all right in no time, my lord.”

At the moment, Ser Barristan Selmy chose to stumble into the tent.

“It’s almost over, my lord!” he reported, clutching his bleeding left arm. “The false queen is hiding in Maegor’s Holdfast, and Tommen Baratheon is taken prisoner!”

“Excellent, Ser Barristan,” Tyrion grinned, and the old knight noticed his companion.

“My lady,” he bowed. “I’m glad you’re in good health and reunited with your spouse.”

Tyrion realized that the position they were in – himself holding Sansa’s hand, Sansa hugging his shoulders – could lead to wrong conclusions.

“My lord, congratulations to you,” finished Ser Barristan and winced in pain.

Recovering from the initial little shock, Sansa, ever the perfect lady, curtsied to him:

“I am happy to see you too, Ser Barristan. May I have a look at your wound? I have learned healing.”

 _The day’s getting interesting for poor, abandoned, coughing and sneezing me,_ Tyrion decided, gulping down more honeyed milk.


	2. The Gravedigger's Dreams

Another one dead. A weak old man, succumbing more to the frost and hunger than to actual illness.

Sandor finished digging and looked at the plain wooden coffin being lowered into the pit. The Elder Brother had already found a replacement for him among the novices, but until he left, Sandor figured he might just as well help the Isle a bit more.

It had been ten days since the little bird left. Sandor was furious with himself. _I should have gone with her. The elderly septon can’t protect her properly._ News came occasionally from King’s Landing where the Targaryen queen was fighting for the throne, but nothing could be heard of Sansa.

 _What if they were killed on the road? What if one of these crazed queens ordered the little bird’s head chopped off? Damn and blast it, I_ should _have gone with her._

It all seemed very much unreal, too good to be true. Starting with Sansa’s reappearance in his life.

_“You are – you are alive?”_

_Her mouth, small and rosy. Her widened eyes, blue and innocent and clear like the summer sky. It’s truly her. Sansa Stark. His curse, his blessing, his sweetest dream, his worst nightmare._

_“I could ask you the same thing, little bird.”_

_She is alive, no mistake there, her breasts rise and fall as she breathes deeply, the cold wind colors her dainty face. He believed her dead. No one in Westeros had heard of her for many months._

_“I knew it wasn’t you – at Saltpans. I hoped you were still alive and in hiding, and there you are,” she whispers and steps closer, closer, so close that her red hair tickles his shoulders and arms when gushes of wind blow in his direction. He yearns to grip her little white hands to make sure she’s not a vision._

_“I think it would have been better for me to leave with you during Blackwater Battle, se…_ Sandor. _”_

 _Fool. Little beautiful gullible fool. Has she learned nothing of the world? She should thank her lucky stars he had been too drunk to carry her away by force, to take her away from the buggering lion’s den, to_ take _her. She should be grateful life on the Quiet Isle had taught him to keep himself in check. Still, he can hardly restrain himself from grasping her small shoulders, pressing her to him…_

_His face must show nothing. She looks up, disappointed:_

_“You aren’t glad to see me.”_

_“Forgive me, little bird,” he rasps, realizing that in a moment, if he doesn’t do anything, she’ll vanish once again. He takes her hand – it’s so soft and warm, her skin like silk. “I’m still the ugly dog who doesn’t know how to behave with you.”_

She was a healer at the Elder Brother’s hospital, he learned. When there was no work for him, he came there to watch her. Her graceful movements and her sweet smile – not only for the patients but for him too.

Sandor couldn’t believe it when he realized she was for some reason truly _fond_ of him. Once at night, after returning from yet another funeral, he couldn’t help but steal a look at the room where she slept. He found out that she used his old Kingsguard cloak as a blanket.

_“Are you planning to take their vows, Sandor?”_

_“No, little bird. With all due respect, I’m not the one to be a silent brother.”_

_“I thought for a moment you’ve already taken them. Before I saw you, you haven’t spoken once.”_

_“It’s better to mix with the crowd if you want to hide.”_

_They are sitting in his room, in front of a hearth. The little bird came there, insisting that her own room is colder and that she needs company._

_“Why do you keep that old cloak, little bird?”_

_She blushes prettily at having been discovered._

_“It… it reminded me of you. I felt safe with it.”_

_“Were you so much in danger?” he rasps, inwardly cursing himself for leaving her, for the hundredth time._

_Her blue eyes look up at him, and she starts to speak. How she lived with Littlefinger and her cousin in the Vale. At first it wasn’t so bad, if you don’t count that the fucker constantly kissed and groped her (supposedly he believed it a sort of thanks). But as winter came with all its fierceness, famine spread around the whole region. Robert Arryn was one of the first to go, sickly as he was. Some people poisoned others so that more food could be spared for themselves. Despite all precautions taken, Baelish himself fell victim to that trick._

_“Great-Uncle Brynden came and rescued me and my friend Mya,” Sansa whispers. “If not for him… I wouldn’t have stayed human for long.”_

_Sandor listens to her story of the Blackfish’s death, her new captivity, and finally her life in Saltpans. His fury for not being by her side rises like flames in the hearth._

_“I should have known,” he hisses. “I should have been there.”_

_“The Elder Brother told me how badly you were wounded!” she exclaims in horror, clasping her hands together. “It’s fortunate he found you and allowed you to stay on the Isle!”_

_“But you were alone.”_

_“I managed to get out of it all alive, Sandor.”_

_“You were raped,” he says quietly, his throat clenching at the words. She bites her lip and sighs:_

_“It happened only once. After that, he only went for Mya. The healers in Saltpans… they helped me. I’m quite healed since then,” and he grits his teeth at the thought of calling her painful memories back._

_“It’s late,” he says sharply. “You must go to sleep. You have several dozen patients at your hands.”_

She spent three months at the Isle, and no day passed without her coming to see him. Everyone saw that. For him, it seemed a continuation of some wild dream. Sansa Stark, wanting his company? Never!

_She asked him to gather a special sort of roots from the earth – they have a healing effect. As he walks among the sickbeds with a full bag of these roots in his hand, he sees her leaning over some plump middle-aged woman, giving her a cough mixture._

_“Oh, Sandor, thank you!” the little bird cries joyfully as she finishes her job. She hugs the bag like children hug their favorite toys, and runs off to Rillen, to prepare medicines with these roots._

_“She’s a nice girl, Alayne is,” the patient notes, smiling. In the hospitals Sansa hides her hair under a cap, and she’s known as Alayne there._

_Sandor nods. Suddenly, the woman looks at him:_

_“She’s much less sad since she’s met you. Always laughing and jumping.”_

_“Is she?” Sandor rasps._

_“Oh aye, good man, she is,” the woman’s eyes twinkle. “You can look after her, and she needs it badly, she does. She wears herself out in the hospital.”_

_Sandor leaves without a word. Of course, the woman thinks the girl in question is a commoner called Alayne, not Princess Sansa of bloody Winterfell._

_Whenever he comes into the hospital again, this insufferable woman continues her playful hints. Until she’s suddenly worse, her cough seemingly tearing her apart, her cheeks no longer plump and dimpled. Sansa sits with her for hours and no results._

_Sandor has watched the patients enough to know when they get truly bad. Unnoticed, he stands at the door, waiting for the end, so that he would go and dig the grave._

_“Poor thing, you ain’t sleeping for days,” the woman says to Sansa, with pity. “Leave me, girl, you need rest, you do, or you’ll end worse than me. Go to that man of yours, I bet he’ll warm you up.”_

_Despite everything, Sansa’s cheeks redden:_

_“I need to wait for the mixture to take effect, Enid,” she said with all the cheeriness she can muster._

_But the mixture doesn’t take effect. Enid doesn’t die yet that evening, nor does she get better. As Sandor goes through the hospital in search for the Elder Brother (he has to ask where to put the newly chopped firewood), the thinned, half-conscious, feverish woman doesn’t even smile at him, let alone tease him about Sansa. With a pang, he realizes he misses it._

_The next morning, he’s feeding Septon Meribald’s dog, when Sansa comes running to him._

_“What are you thinking, little bird?” he snaps. “In the cold, in a thin coat like this?”_

_“Sandor!” she chirps happily, catching his arm with one hand and petting the gleefully barking dog with another. “Sandor, Enid’s better! The fever broke at dawn, and she’s coughing much less now, and only a minute ago she ate two bowls of soup!”_

_He takes her in his arms and spins her in the air as she laughs, her jingling beautiful laugh. It all comes so naturally and easily, he presses his lips to hers and feels her eager response. Her sweetness isn’t tainted by the faint taste of apothecary herbs._

_“Let’s go inside,” he whispers into her mouth. “You_ are _shivering, little bird.”_

_Arm in arm they walk into the hospital, feeling the warm air enveloping them. From a familiar bed, Enid waves and beams at them, and he finds himself smiling back. Sansa giggles at his side._

After that day everything seemed to progress in the only right way possible. It felt so unbelievably right to kiss his little bird good morning, to play with her hair as she rested herself in his cabin, to hold her close and tight when she shuddered from a cold draft.

Still, Sandor was cautious to take steps further. He reminded himself of her trauma, of her delicate figure and innocent, childlike character, and he never overstepped the main boundaries. Until another month later…

_“Thankfully, no work for you today!” she announces at the doorstep, taking off the furs._

_“Good,” he grins, “Besides, I’m already exhausted after repairing Brother Narbert’s cell. Last night’s snowstorm was bad for its walls.”_

_“Poor Brother Narbert,” she smiles, “First Stranger bites him, now this. Is he unharmed, at least?”_

_“You and Rillen of all people would have known if he was harmed,” Sandor replied. “He’s fine.”_

_“Had a letter from Enid,” Sansa informs him._

_“How’s she?”_

_“Right as rain. She’s again working as a nurse for that rich merchant’s family, and she lacks nothing. By the way, she offers her services as a nurse to me.”_

_“You? Little bird, you’re a bit overgrown!”_

_“Not_ me _, silly! Our future children!”_

_Sandor freezes._

_“The woman’s a tease,” he concludes._

_“Sandor?” something in the little bird’s voice signals she’s serious. “You don’t… you don’t want children?”_

_“Stop it. You are married to another, little bird.”_

_“Tyrion’s kind, he will give me an annulment…”_

_“If he reappears.”_

_“And if he’s dead,” she fidgets for a while, “well, I am sorry for him – very sorry – but then I am a widow and a free woman.”_

_“A princess with your lineage will never be free,” he spits bitterly._

_“Sandor,” she says sternly. “Does my lineage help anything? Did his name of Arryn help little Robert? Or did the name of Tully ensure Uncle Brynden’s safety in the mountains? In these times, no one in their rightful mind thinks of lineage. We need to survive.”_

_These are exactly the thoughts that taunt him mercilessly as he dreams of her. But even then, she’s unattainable._

_“You deserve better – much better,” Sandor says roughly, stopping himself from adding “little bird”, so that she would get rid of her fancy and leave him alone._

_She doesn’t. As she stretches her hands towards the hearth so nonchalantly as if nothing has transpired, he decides to show her. He grips her arms hard enough to bruise and kisses her – not a gentle kiss like before, but hungry and demanding._

_“Run, little bird,” he rasps, moving to kiss her neck. “I am dangerous to you.”_

_“Oh, Sandor,” she caresses his coarse hair and presses his head closer. “I will never run from you, my Hound.”_

_It’s his undoing. He feels a wetness on his face and is hardly surprised to find it’s his own tears. Sansa wraps her arms around him, mumbling some sweet words into his chest, and he unbuttons her dress with shaking fingers._

_In spite of his earlier threat, he is gentle. Tries to be, at the very least. He handles her as carefully as if she could break from his touch. When she tries to grasp his clothing, he stops her – the girl won’t stand the sight of his scarred, ugly body. He only removes what is strictly necessary._

_“I love you, Sandor,” she whispers afterwards, lying in his arms, and he is afraid to wake up, to find all this conjured by his crazed mind. But when he wakes up, the little bird’s still there._

As if on cue, in several days Septon Meribald brings definite news of Tyrion Lannister. The dwarf has come with a new queen, the Targaryen woman, as her trusted advisor.

_“I will go to him,” Sansa says. “I will ask for an annulment.”_

_Dread curls in his stomach._

_“Why must you, little bird? You are living under the name of Alayne right now. No one can know who you are.”_

_“_ I _cannot do this, Sandor. I won’t marry you until I’m released from my previous marriage.”_

_“And what if you’re not?” he asks angrily. “The dwarf might not want to part with you.”_

_“After I’ve deserted him? Don’t worry, Sandor.”_

_“By the way, for him, I’m a traitor.”_

_“I will ask for your pardon. Tyrion understands. He betrayed his family himself, if you haven’t heard.”_

_She leaves an hour later, accompanied by the septon._

_“It will be safer for you to stay here,” she whispers as she gives him a final kiss. “I will return and marry you. I promise, my love.”_

_Then she’s gone. Gone, like the dream she is. Was anything of this real at all?_

Sandor groaned. Ten days! He had lived on the island for many months and never noticed the time passing, but now, all of a sudden, every day seems longer than a decade. Every moment makes his brief time with Sansa more and more like a dream.

What if she never came back?

What if she decided to be a dutiful wife and stayed with Lannister?

“Little bird,” Sandor groaned, looking into the blue sky – so cold, so different from her darling warm eyes.


	3. The Queen and her Subjects

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My ASoIaF fics are now waking from their lethargy.
> 
> "The post office apologizes for the delay" (c) Moist von Lipwig, Terry Pratchett's Going Postal

“It’s nothing dangerous, Ser Barristan,” Sansa announced, smiling, as she finished treating the wound. “See? I’ve bandaged it, so it won’t get infected. Soon you’ll be good as new.”

“Thank you, my lady,” the elderly knight said. “What tidings come from other lands in Westeros?”

“The Vale’s practically died out,” Sansa replied. “The North… it’s almost occupied by the Others, and we haven’t heard properly from them for a long while. The Tyrells and the Martells have retreated into their castles and all but closed their lands’ borders. No wonder – they live in warm climate, with plenty of food and other supplies, when the rest of us is starving. Storm’s End is deserted, as far as I know, and there are no true Baratheons around. The Iron Islands have gone absolutely wild, Euron Greyjoy vandalizes most of the western coast.”

“Pretty much expected,” Tyrion sighed. “And the rest?..”

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “I have heard all sorts of wild rumors about Casterly Rock being pulled to the ground (Tyrion gasped) or Walder Frey taking over the whole of the Riverlands, but I have no idea what part of it is true.”

She pulled out a small greenish herb out of her pocket and chewed on it absentmindedly.

“It’s a measure of protection from greyscale,” she explained, seeing the unspoken question in the eyes of her companions. “Two weeks ago we’ve had a death from it in our hospital, so I must continue taking this, we call it ‘song-grass’, daily for a fortnight more. Don’t worry, I haven’t had any symptoms, it’s just a precaution.”

“Are you sure, my lady?” Ser Barristan asked, instantly alert. “Have there been any more deaths?”

“No,” Sansa said. “Our hospital is very well organized. We’ve had about a dozen patients with dangerous diseases during the time I’ve been there, and none of them caused an outbreak.”

“I hope so,” Tyrion murmured. “The last thing we need here is greyscale.”

A great noise came from outside – shouting, dragon wings flapping, stomping, yells of pain or victory, clang of iron…

“Her Grace is back,” Ser Barristan stated.

“She will be here soon,” Tyrion agreed. “Sansa, are you going to meet her now?”

“I think I will do just so,” the young woman said. “Since she’s been notified of my coming, it’s the best thing to do. What’s more, the wounded fighters must need a healer’s attention.”

“Will you be staying in King’s Landing now, my lady?” Barristan asked. “Her Grace will be very happy for another Great House to bend the knee. And with the fate of Casterly Rock uncertain… this city is safer for now.”

“Uh, Ser Barristan, not exactly,” Sansa said. “I am going to bend the knee, of course –we don’t need another round of civil war – but I am going to seek an annulment of my marriage to Lord Tyrion.”

The old man’s white brows slightly rose, and he looked at Tyrion.

“It’s true,” Tyrion said. “We have been wedded against our will, and it’s only proper the marriage is dissolved.”

Barristan Selmy said nothing. As one of the very few men who respected Kingsguard vows, he had no experience with women save for his hidden and never confessed longing for Ashara Dayne, so he could not aid them in the matter. Of course, he could understand Sansa who felt no passion for her misshapen husband, but if asked, he would have insisted on putting the already given vows of wedlock before everything else.

Azen looked inside their tent:

“My lord, my lady, Ser Barristan, Her Grace has returned victorious and is asking for you.”

 _Not so desperately idiotic, then,_ Tyrion thought appreciatively, putting on another set of furs: at least Azen had the brains to tell the Queen about Sansa’s arrival.

They went out of the tent, and Sansa gasped by his side.

Well, even Tyrion, used to the sight of dragons by now, had to admit it was spectacular.

Queen Daenerys, in a black coat sewn with red, was standing on the back of her black dragon, the enormous red-and-black saddle behind her looking practically like a throne. Daario Naharis, looking especially exotic with his blue hair and bright clothing, stood on one side of the dragon, holding the crown, and Jorah Mormont stood on the other side, holding a sword in which Tyrion recognized Widow’s Wail. _How ironic_ , he thought. _The sword fits perfectly with the Targaryen colors._

Rhaegal wasn’t to be seen – which meant Daenerys hadn’t used him in her battle. Tyrion sighed with relief: the whole court, even including Daario, had been convincing the Queen that mindless _fire and blood_ would only result in the smallfolk hating her as Mad Aerys’s true daughter. And, indeed, there were relatively few puffs of smoke rising above the city.

There was a huge crowd gathered already, with a trembling Tommen Baratheon in front of them all. The boy’s eyes widened as he spotted his uncle, and Tyrion gave him what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

“People of King’s Landing!” Daenerys said. “The false queen’s power is finally overthrown. Now I shall be crowned as the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, and the need and starvation with be soon over, with peace and order restored in your lands.”

The smallfolk cheered. Tyrion exhaled again. The Queen had been preparing the speech for quite some time, and at first it was mostly about her titles and restoring first and foremost the former glory of the Targaryens. Ser Barristan had to bring up Aerys again to convince her to remake it.

“The last Targaryen they remember is the Mad one, who had nearly burned them, my queen,” he had said. “People are cold, hungry and tired of war, they don’t care you are a Khaleesi and a Breaker of Chains and everything else. They want to be fed and cared for, this is all.”

“Lord Tommen Baratheon, who was falsely proclaimed king, stand forth,” Daenerys continued. Tommen took several reluctant steps, gazing at the dragon with horror.

“I shall forgive you, for you are but a boy and you had been manipulated by your mother and your wife, and, furthermore, your uncle, my Hand, had interceded on your behalf. I shall even allow you to be part of a Great House – the Lannisters have no heirs as long as Lord Tyrion has no sons, so you will be called Lord Tommen Lannister. If you bend the knee. Do you agree?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Tommen knelt immediately and readily. “I… I didn’t like it. Being king, I mean, Your Grace.”

Daenerys smiled:

“Rise, Lord Lannister. I shall count on your allegiance and friendship.”

Tommen stood up:

“May I greet my uncle?”

“Of course you may,” Daenerys smiled further, and Tommen was by Tyrion’s side in no time.

“Uncle… thank goodness… I’m so glad to be rid of it all…” he murmured as he knelt and hugged Tyrion.

“Tommen, you _have_ grown,” it was the least smart remark one could come up with, but for once, it was true. His nephew was more serious, more mature, but his affectionate character, thankfully, wasn’t gone. _How old is he now? Eleven, I think…_ “How’s… where’s Margaery?”

“Mother imprisoned her again just a couple of weeks ago, thinking her in league with the Dragon Queen,” Tommen sighed. “I was… Margaery was nice enough to me, but the way she always seem to talk me into things… I sometimes felt I just wasn’t there when she spoke.”

Tyrion patted his hand:

“Have you consummated the marriage yet?”

“No,” Tommen said with emphasis. “I… Mother said I would become a complete pawn, and I think here she was right.”

The way he said “Mother”… Even Lord Tywin had talked about Tyrion with _more_ affection, which was saying something.

“It was so awful here. I felt so helpless. Uncle Kevan dead, nobody to speak to, I’m _so_ happy you’re alive and here again.”

“Me, too, Tommen,” Tyrion said simply, though his heart clenched. There was still at least one person who genuinely cared for him.

Tommen suddenly remembered his courtesies, stood up once again and bowed:

“Lady Sansa. Ser Barristan.”

He hadn’t had much chance to talk to them, though, as Daenerys spoke again:

“Ser Barristan Selmy of the Queensguard, stand forth!”

Barristan walked to her.

“Ser Barristan, you have fought exceptionally bravely in battle and taken a wound for your Queen. From now on, I establish a title of Champion of the Crown, and you shall be the first to hold it. The emblem of the title will be a dragon-shaped golden or silver clasp which I will have made as soon as possible. You will have a clasp of gold for you.”

“My queen,” Barristan bowed solemnly, but Tyrion noticed how the old man’s face practically glowed. The last time he was ordered to stand forth, he was stripped of his Kingsguard position by Joffrey and Cersei, and Tyrion knew that Selmy’s secret fear was that they might have been _right_ , that he _was_ turning old.

“Ser Jorah Mormont of the Queensguard, stand forth!”

Jorah did so almost as reluctantly as Tommen, his eyes following the Queen as a puppy’s ones; Tyrion thought it rather amusing.

“Ser Jorah, you too have demonstrated memorable courage and ability, proving your loyalty for once and for all. You, too, are proclaimed Champion of the Crown, with a clasp of…” there was a moment’s hesitation, “gold, too.”

“Khaleesi,” Jorah knelt, and Tyrion chuckled under his breath: the way this fool said her title (still the old one, the one he was used to), his feelings for the Queen would be an open secret in the city in three days at most.

“Now, to move to other matters, I have been informed that Lady Sansa of House Lannister has come here during the battle…”

Jorah Mormont wasn’t getting any wiser: he shot a triumphal glance at Daario who hadn’t been proclaimed Champion or anything. Actually, anyone with a grain of sense would realize: Daenerys was already foreign enough in Westeros, she wouldn’t want to enhance it by lavishing honors on Essosi, especially those who had nothing to their credit except for their _memorable abilities_ in bed.

“Lady Lannister, you may come forth.”

Sansa went to the dragon, still looking at it in awe, and dropped into a curtsey:

“Your Grace.”

“You have sent me a raven that you wish to bend the knee. Is this still your decision?”

 _In front of a gigantic black dragon? What a very hard question!_ Tyrion thought.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Our fathers fought each other, but I am willing to start my dynasty anew and forget about the past strife. You can stay at my court, or, if that be your wish, return to your lord husband’s castle when he reclaims it.”

“Pardon, Your Grace…” Sansa began tentatively.

“Yes, Lady Lannister?”

Sansa swallowed:

“My lord husband and I have discussed it thoroughly, and we decided it would be best to annul our marriage.”

“It was forced on us,” Tyrion decided it was time to support her. “Neither of us truly gave a consent or had a say in the matter.”

Daenerys frowned:

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Tyrion said.

“Completely, Your Grace,” Sansa said.

“Truth be told, I am not happy to hear of it. When I learned you are alive, I was planning for you to stay the wife of Lord Hand. In these times, the Houses need to be united, especially the Starks and the Lannisters, and what better way to unite them than marriage?”

She was growing uncertain. Tyrion had told her his story, and now she was obviously afraid she might lose his loyalty if she forced this union all over again. To speak nothing of the loyalty of Sansa.

“Your Grace, I have a suggestion, if I may, that is good for the cause too, if maybe not as perfect,” Sansa spoke up. “I wish to marry a bannerman of the Lannisters, so… if you split my marriage to Lord Tyrion… I would still remain tied to the West.”

“Is this bannerman here?”

“No, Your Grace. He is on the Quiet Isle, on the border of the Riverlands and the Vale.”

“He should come here, bend the knee and be acknowledged by Lord Tyrion as a bannerman of his.”

“He will, Your Grace,” Sansa said, finally daring to smile a little.

“Lord Tyrion, Ser Barristan, Ser Jorah… Daario… I need your council,” Daenerys went on, and Sansa rushed back to the tent. “Good people of King’s Landing, you may return to your houses. Missandei…” the Naathi girl, hidden in the shadow of Drogon before, sprang forward. “See to it that the fires in the city are put down and the guards of Maegor’s Holdfast don’t fail.”

“Ugh. Apparently my sweet sister has barricaded herself inside, along with Margaery her prisoner,” Tyrion said. “Sansa – Tommen – you can stay in my tent, Azen will bring you food. I hope we’ll be moving to the Red Keep soon.”

Tommen smiled at him broadly and offered his arm to Sansa:

“My lady, allow me to escort you.”

“My lord,” she nodded.

“Er… Just Tommen, my lady, if you could. Even if you separate Uncle.”

As Tyrion hurriedly waddled to join Daenerys and the rest, he thought: really, Tommen looks as if he had just been crowned king instead of having been overthrown. _What sort of pressing he must have been, under Cersei? No wonder he has no wish to rule the realm. Oh, and now he seems to be my heir apparent… But the West alone is easier to manage than the Seven Kingdoms._

Now he only had to hope he’d find some suitable wife for himself. _She may not love me, she may not even sleep with me – I want only to bring up Tommen as I should, as my future successor._ Tyrion was afraid _he_ wasn’t very experienced at raising Lords of Casterly Rock. He had only had his father as an example – he certainly didn’t want to end up like that (and it didn’t matter that Tommen, by sheer irony, _was_ a bastard in fact, albeit legitimized by Daenerys). But he had heard enough of his grandfather the Laughing Lion to know that taking things to another extreme was just as dangerous.

 _Whatever people say, a child needs two parents. Then there’ll inevitably be_ some _balance in his upbringing_ , he concluded.


	4. The Storms of Snow and Fire

A snowstorm raged and roared outside as Daenerys finished telling her councilors about her plan. King’s Landing was already taken, and all that was left to do was storm Maegor’s Holdfast and fish out Cersei Lannister, who had hidden herself deep inside, and Margaery Tyrell, who was also hidden there, though less willingly, because she was imprisoned.

“From what I’ve gathered, Margaery is too ambitious to be loosed completely,” she said. “But I don’t want antagonism from a Great House, especially a House that supplies us with provisions. I will allow her to join my court on some conditions, and maybe later find her a husband.”

“Make her a hostage, you mean,” said Tyrion. A faint blush creeped up Dany’s cheeks:

“It’s not like that.”

“Well, it looks very much like that. Margaery’s safekeeping in exchange for Highgarden fruit and cattle.”

“What are we to do? In this weather, in this state, I can’t afford to leave the capital and to make further war with the Reach. They haven’t even declared for me yet.”

“Perhaps it would be wiser to just send the girl back with her Tyrell name returned.”

“Send her back? A girl who managed to become queen, change sides and become queen again? So that my reign in the Reach will never be secure?”

“If she stays in King’s Landing, _you_ won’t be quite secure,” Tyrion pointed out. “My lady soon-to-be former wife told me how the Tyrells framed us for Joffrey’s murder. I don’t know if Margaery played a big part in that plot, but if she’s got half her grandmother’s brains and ambitions, she’ll stop at nothing from gaining the throne again.”

“How do you suspect she’ll do it? Tommen is a Lannister now. If she manages to win him over once more, she’ll only be Lady of Casterly Rock.”

“She’s already of a Great House, if she changes that, it would be for something better, and the only better thing is sitting on the Iron Throne.”

“Fine, and how will she do it? I have no male relations who might be heirs. The smallfolk have accepted me, they won’t want another pretender.”

That earned her an exasperated “Khaleesi!” from Ser Jorah, who had finally gotten over his battle-glory euphoria to actually argue with Daenerys.

“You still secretly believe that people here are sewing dragon banners,” he said.

“Well, I’m a true Targaryen and…”

“Margaery was quite well-beloved with the smallfolk,” Tyrion cut in. “They’ll declare for her quite as easily.”

“But she has no _claim_!” Daenerys shouted furiously.

“Neither did Robert, and he managed to hold the throne for more than ten years. Neither, I may say, did Aegon the Conqueror when he landed on Westeros.”

“Still, my lord,” Ser Barristan turned to Tyrion, “I think I must agree with Her Grace. Lady Margaery will be of less danger here than in the Reach. If she stays here, she will hardly attempt anything with the dragons around. Keeping her at court would ensure the safety of the Tyrells in Reach, as well as the other way round.”

Tyrion was still very uncomfortable. On one hand, it made sense, of course. On the other – he didn’t want any Tyrells in the Red Keep. To be very honest, he didn’t want them anywhere, but unfortunately the poisonous roses of Highgarden were owners of the most prosperous harvests in Westeros. Waging war on them now would mean destroying crops, cattle and fruit in the process.

“Then, my queen, we must firmly ensure our safety from her,” he said.

His dislike of Margaery Tyrell was increased by the fact that he noticed her jarring resemblance to the infamous Ellyn Reyne (alias Lannister, alias Tarbeck), even though the latter had been killed long before his birth. But all components were there: beauty, boundless ambition, dirty methods under an innocent look, manipulation of an insecure boy and fight with another woman for being queen bee.

“Tyrion, we shall fly to the Holdfast together,” Dany said. “Your cold seems to be gone.”

Only now, first swallowing and then trying to blow his nose, did Tyrion realize she was right. Perhaps the effects of Sansa’s medicine were combined with the excitement of the day.

“Two dragons will be enough.”

“Aye, for two pretender queens,” Tyrion agreed.

“If Lady Tyrell doesn’t bend the knee, we won’t have to worry about her.”

“We won’t, will we? We have just discussed that her life and health would ensure the Reach’s loyalty to you. If you burn her, the Tyrells will be _enraged_. They won’t even need to do anything – they’ll just stop the whatever little trade is still there.”

“Viserion’s attack might teach them manners…”

“…and burn their crops. My queen, we can’t afford to kill Margaery. Not now, at least.”

Daenerys shot him an irritated look, and he knew what she was probably thinking: _hopefully Margaery kills herself during the attack or does some foolish thing like charge at the dragon or is already murdered by Cersei_. In such cases, the blame could be effortlessly put on the pretender queen. However, Tyrion was almost certain the Tyrell girl was alive. A granddaughter of the Queen of Thorns, she wasn’t easy to kill of, and surely wouldn’t go and commit suicide like some hysterical idiot.

Outside, the dragons seemed to have sensed that a new flight and attack were upcoming. Viserion was especially overjoyed, as Tyrion had previously shooed him away. Roars bellowed and playful sparks of flame could be seen even through the tent.

“We’ll have to build a new Dragonpit and have them tamed a little,” Ser Barristan said worriedly.

“I wonder how during all the time the Dothraki Sea wasn’t burnt,” Tyrion agreed.

Thankfully, the dragons calmed down once they saw their riders. Tyrion took a momentary leave to come to his tent again and alert Sansa and Tommen.

“We’re flying to Maegor’s Holdfast,” he told them. “I don’t know how long it’ll take – depends on where exactly my sister’s hiding.”

“Oh, can I see you fly?” Sansa jumped up immediately. Tommen merely nodded: he was exhausted enough and he had seen his share of dragons already (even if it was only Drogon).

“Starting from the late Lord Arryn, many people indeed have wanted to see me fly,” Tyrion acknowledged. “There’s the difference between waddling on earth and conquering the air, but even I’m surprised how popular I’ve suddenly become.”

The sparkles in Sansa’s eyes dimmed, and Tyrion sighed: despite everything, his wife still often took jokes too seriously.

“I’m sorry, I had no intention to remind you of my adventures in the Vale,” he said. “Well, if you want to see it, come out and put all these furs of yours back on – the storm is getting really horrible.”

“Of course,” Sansa nodded, managing a smile, but then she suddenly looked genuinely worried. “Is it safe to fly in this weather?”

“The dragons need considerably more wind to be swayed off course,” Tyrion reassured her – while in fact he wasn’t so sure himself. This winter was so deadly that nothing of its like had been recorded during the time of the early Targaryen dragons, and as Sansa’s ancestor had peacefully bent the knee, the dragons had never done much flying in the North, let alone fighting.

Sansa wrapped herself in her cloaks, again. Tommen pretended to doze off, which Tyrion perfectly understood – whatever their relationship might have become, Cersei was still his mother.

Dany was already on Drogon’s back, and Tyrion envied her again – she didn’t need to put on all these furs and scarfs. _Unfair, truly; the Targaryens are a race of fire, how comes the cold doesn’t touch them_? He knew, of course, that it was the heredity of the Freehold, the hundreds of generations of fierce dragonriders who reigned in the Essosi skies in all weathers and climes, but still it looked unfair.

Viserion lowered his neck so that Tyrion would be able to get to the saddle. The dragon scales were easy to climb, and Tyrion had never wanted anyone to help him get up, even when he only started to learn flying.

“Oh! Could I go riding them too?” Sansa exclaimed, watching it in awe.

“Certainly; the Queen or myself would be glad to give you ride, but not now,” said Tyrion. “I even had to have these saddle belts installed; during fighting I’ll be in more danger of falling off than of being killed by enemy.”

“Naturally, not now,” Sansa smiled. “Be careful.”

His heart clenched as he watched her smiling and waving at him as Viserion took off. If it hadn’t been for Clegane… maybe they would have managed to live together. Sansa was now ever so pleasant with him, and she would be an excellent aunt to Tommen.

There was a treacherous thought that Dany was already against their divorce, that he could simply withdraw his agreement and no law would allow Sansa to leave him. But it was rubbish, obviously. Sansa would feel betrayed (and justly so) and she’ll go back to the icy armor of courtesy of their marriage before Joffrey’s death. Tyrion wasn’t going to suffer from that agony all over again.

Maegor’s Holdfast appeared in the grey blur of the snowstorm. In front of Tyrion, Drogon made a huge dive, and Daenerys yelled something – he couldn’t hear what it was, but most probably she commanded her own guards to step away to avoid getting burnt.

Then, the dragons were truly put to their work.

The strategy was simple. The first shots were small and weak, hardly setting even wood on fire – they were warnings (if the dragons themselves hadn’t been warnings enough). Then, if the people still didn’t surrender, the fire was to be started first in the yard and the stables, to give them the last chance. And then, there was only _fire and blood_.

The first two steps were over quickly, and, of course, without result. Well, not _completely_ without – the red-cloaked guardsmen of Cersei ran away in a disordered crowd as the fire began to spread, reminding Tyrion of rats abandoning a sinking ship.

He was glad with it: soldiers were needed now more than ever, and, additionally, if Cersei was basically the only one they had to face, it meant there would be no archers, and the dragon wouldn’t have to do somersaults – Tyrion was feeling the wind pulling him backwards as it was.

Maegor’s Holdfast was incredibly massive, but it had never pretended to be even at the level of Harrenhal. There were many things that could burn.

Soon, a well-directed combination of blasts from Drogon and Viserion made one of the walls crash in a pool of melting iron and burning wood, revealing what used to be the Queen’s Ballroom.

Well, in a sense, it still was – a queen _was_ there. Cersei was sitting on the floor, as though paralyzed, and Tyrion was struck by how she had changed. When he left Westeros, she was going mad after Joffrey’s murder, but had still possessed her Lannister looks that she used to win over every simpleton around. Now, she wasn’t plump with age or anything, she was plainly _fat,_ her hair was short and very bleak, and her face was flushed red – and, seeing the bottle and goblet still by her side, Tyrion felt he knew why.

_How sweet. She had been whining about Robert’s fatness and drunkenness. I wish he could see her now, they would have been a harmonious couple._

“It’s him!” Cersei screeched. “I knew it would be him! But you won’t get me yet, little brother – you won’t get me yet!”

Tyrion couldn’t even feel the hatred anymore. She had turned too pathetic for that.

A huge knight, fully clad in heavy armor, stepped in front of Cersei. His armor had once been white, but now, and especially in the snowstorm, it looked muddy grey.

The knight, meanwhile, could only be one person, unless someone else in Westeros had magically grown to a height of over eight feet.

“Gregor Clegane, how _charming_ a reunion,” Tyrion grinned. Dany was hovering on Drogon’s back by his side, silent – he had insisted that this revenge was his. “Seems we’re going to have this trial by combat in truth. Dracarys.”

A cloud of flame surrounded the not-quite-dead Clegane, and there was the bubbling sound of melting metal.

“Dracarys,” commanded Tyrion again – after what happened to Oberyn Martell, one had to be _completely_ sure.

It took ten full bursts of flame, until finally what was left was a pool of metal and strange red-colored ashes.

However, it seemed to Tyrion that something in the picture was amiss.

In a second, he realized that the missing object was Cersei. The goblet and bottle stayed, but Cersei had disappeared.

“Not to worry,” Dany said coldly. “We’ll melt wall by wall until we find…”

As it turned out, even this measure was unnecessary. Tyrion heard his sister’s wail from somewhere nearby:

“Kill me! Right now, I’m telling you!”

There was some squeaking from whoever she was speaking to.

“No doubt you’ll be put to death!” Cersei shouted. “No one would want someone who _murdered_ her Queen. But don’t worry, dear, you’ll be killed anyway, so I suggest you hurry up.”

Dany jumped from Drogon and onto the floor, pulling out her personal shortsword (rarely used, but at her side in battle just in case). Before Tyrion could stop her (who knows, there could be other loyalists of Cersei around), she ran like the wind to one of the doors and opened it.

In a moment, there was a gush of red, staining Dany’s clothing (as it was black and red, though, it wasn’t too noticeable).

“I’m sorry, Tyrion!” Dany said apologetically, going out. “We couldn’t have used dragons, this girl would have been killed as well, and you… well… you…”

“Wouldn’t have made it fast enough, I know,” Tyrion said. He felt strangely empty. It would be strange if he felt a sense of loss, but he couldn’t feel triumph, either. He looked at what had been the Ballroom, and the dream of revenge was gone – not _broken_ , as it would have been if Cersei somehow won, not fulfilled. Just evaporated.

“Come on,” now Dany was addressing someone else. “No one will hurt you. You are safe.”

“My place is by my lord husband,” the someone else went out of the corridor and was revealed to be a thin pallid woman of about thirty with a mass of unkempt hair of a brownish color and a sharp chin.

 “And your lord husband is?..”

“Ser Gregor Clegane, now calling himself Ser Robert Strong. I love him. I am bound to him.”

The woman was speaking in a dull, lifeless voice, staring at the floor. It looked like she hardly even noticed Cersei’s death.

“I am… er… forced to say,” Dany obviously couldn’t bring herself to say she was _sorry_ , “that your husband fell in combat. He defended Cersei Lannister until the last moment.”

“He fell?” now there was pure horror on the woman’s face. “He was strong. He couldn’t have!”

“I swear by my three children I am saying the truth,” Dany said. She was smart enough not to point out to the Mountain’s widow his actual _remains_.

The horror was gone, replaced again by the dullness.

“Who overcame him?”

“He fell in battle with my Hand, Lord Tyrion Lannister,” Dany started, uncertain where it would lead, but the girl interrupted:

“Then I now belong to him. My husband has taught me. If anyone is strong enough to own me, I belong to him. Now that my husband is no more, I have to pass to another. I am too stupid to be on my own.”

Tyrion stared at her, dumbfounded:

“Er… my lady, there is an error. I am not the strongest in any way. I give you the right to be… um, free. You can join the court of Queen Daenerys.”

“Yes, my lord, I shall join it.”

“No need for it, I’m telling you.”

“If you don’t take me, my lord, I’ll die,” she informed him in the same hollow voice. “I am unfit to live on my own. I am stupid and ugly and penniless.”

 _Seems Gregor had dealt with this one pretty thoroughly,_ Tyrion thought, and finally felt some true triumph at slaying at least the Mountain.

“Er… my lady, I am sorry. I will – er, take you. What is your name?”

She didn’t react.

“What were you called at your wedding?”

“Amirle, of House Westford, my lord.”

“Are we taking her with us?” Dany asked.

“What choice do we have? She’ll kill herself if her ‘owner’ (pity I can’t kill Gregor again!) leaves her. Lady Westford, is there anyone else in the castle?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Who is it?” Tyrion realized she won’t answer a question until asked directly.

“Margaery Tyrell, my lord.”

“Where?”

“In the dungeon, my lord.”

“Are there any guards?”

“No, my lord.”

“Good. Um – could you stop constantly calling me your lord? Or at least say it every third time?”

“Yes, my lord,” said Amirle.

“Take her to the camp,” Daenerys ordered. “I’ll ask Missandei to talk to her, she’ll manage to revive the poor woman… I hope. I will retrieve Margaery Tyrell.”

“Fine,” Tyrion agreed. He had no wish to see Margaery Tyrell anyway. “Lady Westford, could you come here? I’ll help you climb the dragon?”

Now he saw closely just what Gregor had turned his last wife into. Amirle didn’t even raise an eyebrow at the sight of Viserion, and climbed him readily as if it had been her daily business. Before leaving, Tyrion shot one last Dracarys at the Gregor-pool again – just for a meager bit of moral satisfaction.


	5. Settled in the City

_There’s no place like a featherbed_ , Tyrion thought, stretching himself on said object. While the Tower of the Hand was still in ruins, he was given Tommen’s former chambers – on the plus side, Tommen was closer to his height than anyone else and the rooms were furnished for a small occupant; however, they still strongly smelled of cats.

The boy himself was moved to a less luxurious room – he showed complete understanding of the matter, and in fact wanted nothing more than to leave capital behind and move to Casterly Rock. Only three days after the Targaryen Return (as Daenerys liked to call her conquest of King’s Landing), a raven came from Rosby, where, as it turned out, the now-widowed Lady Dorna Lannister had been hiding from Cersei.

 _Now that my lord husband is dead, I have no more interest in courtly matters_ , she wrote. _Please, Your Grace, let me come and see my nephews, and I shall go to Casterly Rock._

Daenerys was touched by the woman’s letter and went so far as to go and take her to King’s Landing on Drogon’s back. The grand gesture was much admired, but in hindsight Dany admitted she could have done without it: the storms were so strong that even for Drogon it was hard to fly, and now it was Lady Dorna who caught a severe cold.

However, both Tyrion and Tommen were overjoyed to see their kind and pious “Aunt Dorna” who, indeed, had rarely left Casterly Rock until her husband was called for regency.

“Will you teach me running the West, too?” Tommen asked shyly. “I mean, with Uncle Tyrion as Hand and myself declared the heir…”

“I’ll try, kid,” she said uncertainly. “I will try to.”

Her grief for Kevan had changed her: she had never been very beautiful to begin with, but now she looked decades older than when her nephews had seen her last. Her hair was all white, and her skin crumpled with wrinkles.

Tyrion noticed that while she greeted him like Tommen, with a smile and a kiss, she was for some reason noticeably colder afterwards. Although she was present at supper with what they could call the whole family for lack of a better term, she hardly spoke to him, devoting more time to Tommen and even to Sansa than to him.

Sansa, who had never met Aunt Dorna before, wasn’t surprised – she recalled Tywin’s treatment of his son and she had no reason to assume an aunt would be kinder to him than a father – but Tommen kept looking worriedly at Tyrion, who was left out of the conversation for most of the evening. Aunt Dorna had always been gentle with her dwarf nephew – well, to be honest, unlike Aunt Genna Frey, she hardly recognized him as an actual person, her kindness a result of sheer pity as one pities a beggar, but especially compared to the treatment he had faced from his father and siblings, she had been absolutely wonderful to him.

Why, then, was she now so cold?

It could have been explained that she was broken after Uncle Kevan’s murder (Tommen knew that his formidable grandfather had only become truly harsh when grandmother died), but she behaved just like usual to him, Tommen.

It remained a mystery for the boy, and spoilt for him the anticipated reunion. He had always longed for one thing: a family with no quarrels and everyone kind to each other. On the next day, he visited Tyrion and tentatively asked what was the matter with Aunt Dorna and him.

“No idea,” Tyrion shrugged. “Perhaps she is angry I declared for Daenerys.”

“But she’s friendly with me,” Sansa said, raising her head from the mixture she was brewing for Dorna’s cold. “And she bent the knee as well. Maybe she doesn’t like it that you’re not in mourning?”

There could be some truth in that, Tyrion thought. Tommen was cladded in black, with only a touch of red and yellow on the collar and sleeves. Aunt Dorna herself hadn’t even that; she was wearing a dress and a hairnet so black that it seemed they were a dress- and a hairnet-shaped holes in spaces. Tyrion wasn’t parading out in bright colors and floral patterns like Loras Tyrell, but his dark red clothes were still a far cry from mourning.

“Daenerys doesn’t want me in black anyway,” he said. “Even though it’s a Targaryen color, she says people need cheering up and Hand of the Queen can’t be seen sad.”

Everyone understood that it was more of an excuse: had Tyrion lost any family he wished to mourn, Daenerys wouldn’t have attempted to keep him from it. But he had never been on cordial terms with Kevan Lannister, since the latter always backed Tywin’s decisions, and he couldn’t bring himself to mourn him, let alone Cersei.

“She wants to go to Casterly Rock,” Tommen said. “But Her Grace says it’s dangerous in the storms.”

“And Her Grace is right,” Tyrion agreed. “I haven’t even flown Viserion since the Return; I don’t trust even the strongest belts to keep me in my saddle. If flying a dragon is dangerous, riding is ten times so. You’d better wait.”

Tommen nodded and sighed. He had no love for the palace, which seemed to be the house of death, anger and grief for all the time he remembered. He was fond of Uncle Tyrion, but the latter was much less cheerful and much more bitter now, and Tommen sensed he would be more bothering him than helping if he stayed in the capital. His wife Margaery, brought before Queen Daenerys, bent the knee and with her ever-present sweet smile agreed to dissolve the marriage. Tommen wasn’t eager to keep her, but he had hoped she had at least some fondness for him.

She must have noticed how disheartened he looked, because after the audience she went to talk to him personally.

“The Queen wouldn’t have allowed the marriage to go on anyway,” she said. “I had been Queen and you had been King, it’s dangerous to keep us together still. So she put you under the command of your uncle and will probably marry me to one of her loyal people.”

“And will you?”

“Will I what, little Tommen?” she smiled.

“Will you marry one of her loyal people?”

“What other choice is there? Besides,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “I have heard rumors the Queen is barren. If it’s true, she’ll have to choose an heir from among her councilors. She has no immediate relations.”

“What about that Aegon we’ve heard about?”

“Do _you_ believe it’s the real Aegon, little Tommen?”

“No,” he admitted.

“There you are. He has all the reasons to call himself Aegon, since Aegon’s aunt now wears the crown and interbreeding has always been the Targaryen custom. But _she_ has no reasons to acknowledge him at all – even if he is, in fact, real. I wouldn’t, in her place.”

“Why?” Tommen asked, shocked.

“Why do you think? He’s already nearing twenty, he has his own plans that certainly don’t include sharing the throne with some woman. If she states he’s true, then she must step down, and that she will never do.”

She ruffled his hair:

“I’m sorry, little Tommen. I like you, honestly.”

“Whom will you marry?”

“Don’t know, the Queen hasn’t got that far yet,” said Margaery. “Maybe your uncle. He’s the only prominent Westerosi loyalist of hers who hasn’t taken a vow of chastity.”

“What about Ser Mormont?”

“I doubt he’ll ever be heir apparent. He’s not likely to outlive her, is he? Additionally, I doubt he’ll want me if asked. I don’t have golden hair or purple eyes.”

It dawned on Tommen:

“Like the Queen?”

“Good one, little Tommen. Like the Queen. So, getting back to me – if it’s not your uncle, it will be one of these Easterners. On one hand, I’ve heard Essosi are _very_ passionate lovers,” Margaery sighed wistfully, and Tommen shuffled his feet: he knew better than most that none of Margaery’s three husbands shared her bed. “On the other, if Her Grace has a grain of sense, she won’t proclaim them heirs. Too risky, you know. _I_ would have rebelled against some dark-skinned king with a name I can’t pronounce.”

“I’d like you to marry Uncle,” Tommen said thoughtfully. “He’s getting separated from Lady Sansa, you know. And… er… Uncle has a way with girls.”

“Not with Lady Sansa, apparently,” Margaery winked at him. “Never worry, little Tommen. I will be glad to marry him if it’s the Queen’s decision. Right now, I’m counting myself lucky. I’m free and a lady at court. I think I will advise Her Grace about dealings with smallfolk.”

“Will she listen to you?”

“We’ll have to make sure she does, little Tommen.”

It hurt much more than he had anticipated. He suddenly knew he’d miss her, her smile and her brown curls and even the patronizing way she called him “little Tommen”. Even while he knew that he was inexperienced with court matters and she, with her gentle talks, was masterfully manipulating him.

With a sudden dash of courage, Tommen closed his eyes, plucked his lips, leaned towards Margaery and kissed her.  
With closed eyes, he missed her lips and instead kissed her nose, immediately moving away, embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I wanted… just for the last time…”

“Don’t apologize, little Tommen,” she laughed and gave him a very chaste peck on the lips. “I’m sure that in just three or four years, girls will be waiting in line for you to at least look at them.”

His uncle, Tommen noticed, was just as uncomfortable with letting his own wife go. Queen Daenerys was opposed to the idea of their divorce, so on the pretext that much in the Red Keep needed rebuilding and that the annulment had to be performed by the High Septon and the title was currently waiting for someone to take it, she gave Sansa the room adjoining to Tyrion’s.

It didn’t help matters – if anything, it only enhanced the awkwardness.

Tyrion had a new problem of his own now – Gregor Clegane’s widow. Amirle Westford was hardly getting any better, even placed in the care of Missandei, a former slave. When not asked directly to do anything, she sat on her bed with folded hands, and her philosophy still revolved about her belonging to Tyrion as he proved himself to be mightier than her previous owner.

On the first night after the Return, he found her in his bed.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, incredulous.

“I am to please my lord.”

The same monotonous voice shattered the weak illusion that for once a woman had come to him on her own will.

“Lady Westford, you don’t need to if you don’t want.”

“I want to please my lord.”

“Every third – no, every _fifth_ time you address me, Lady Westford! I’ve told you earlier! Do you understand?”

“I do, m…” she bit her lip in time and started to take off her shift.

“ _No_!” said Tyrion with emphasis. “Go back to the room Her Grace has given you!”

“I am to ple…”

“You are to obey me,” Tyrion corrected her. “As far as I understand. I don’t want to force you to please me. Go to your room, Lady Westford, and have a nice long sleep.”

After a moment’s hesitation –

“Yes, m… yes, I will.”

He thought this an improvement, but not for long. On the following morning, he was attacked by a raging Missandei:

“What have you done to poor Lady Amirle? She’s not eating anything!”

It turned out that Amirle was starving herself deliberately because it was punishment for not being arousing enough for her lord.

Stuck between Lady Westford with all the willpower and self-sufficiency of a plush puppet and Sansa, who was increasingly sadder with every day she had to wait “until the snowstorms end”, Tyrion took the escape routes left to him: books and state matters.

Although his library in the Tower of the Hand had been burned with the Tower itself, he took to sorting the tomes left from Grand Maester Pycelle. Every evening, he would bring a fresh pile of books and decide which of them he would send to the Citadel and which would be interesting enough to keep with him. Sansa helped him – it cheered her up too, he noticed – and one evening, he decided to add Lady Westford to the circle. Missandei protested at first, but Tyrion was firm:

“The poor woman’s taken it into her head I own her. She’s always punishing herself one way or another because I don’t take her to my bed. Perhaps if _I_ show her she can be treated like a human, she’ll get better faster.”

Lady Westford gave a meek “Yes, my lord”, and from next evening on the three of them were sitting with another set of books. It turned out Tyrion’s idea wasn’t so bad – at first paying attention to books merely because of the “order” of her “owner”, at the second or third book she started to show genuine interest. She still looked up at Tyrion after every page, as if checking if she obeyed him well, but he was sure she was starting to find some enjoyment in the actual reading.

“You have been of great help, Lady Westford,” he assured her, and she glowered:

“Oh, does my lord think so?”

“Yes, I do. Come tomorrow at the same time.”

“Yes, Lady Westford, we’ll get through Grand Maester’s library much more quickly with your assistance,” Sansa chimed in. With her healer’s training, she was most eager to help Lady Westford – but the latter wasn’t so eager to be helped by her.

Now, too, she gave her a frightened look.

“I am sorry, my lady,” she murmured and lowered her head, as if awaiting some punishment.

“There is nothing to be sorry for. We are both happy to have your company,” Tyrion said, as gently as possible.

“My…” Amirle checked herself – the “every fifth time” rule was firmly kept. “Er… I don’t want to anger your true wife, I swear I don’t!”

“You’re not angering me, my dear, and I’m not his true wife,” Sansa said, smiling. “We are going to be separated as soon as possible anyway.”

But Lady Westford’s moment of liveliness was gone. She murmured another incoherent excuse and asked:

“May I be excused?..”

“Yes, Lady Westford, good night to you and sweet dreams.”

“Oh!..” Sansa exhaled as the door closed. “And I thought I was turned mindless in King’s Landing!”

“Well, after the Mountain, it’s a wonder she is still able to speak,” Tyrion said grimly, but then brightened:

“But – have you noticed? First, she was interested in the books by the end! Honestly interested! And there’s another sign she can be healed.”

“What’s that?”

“She asked my permission to leave. Before today, she never asked anything by herself.”


	6. Brotherhood without Banners

Even the Elder Brother didn’t remember such storms. Standing outdoors was like being mercilessly beaten by a gigantic snow fist. Several patients were brought to the hospital because they were crushed under snow.

For himself, Sandor could put up with practically everything, as long as it wasn’t fire, but he was mad with worry for the little bird. Had she reached King’s Landing at least? Was she safe? _Of course, she probably isn’t – an old septon is no protec_ tor, he repeated for the thousandth time. _I should have gone with her. I should have insisted. Either gone with her or made her stay here. The dwarf has surely changed a dozen of bed-warmers already, it’s not like he would care for her. Or if he does care, it’s worse. He’s in power again, and he can refuse the annulment._

No ravens could cross the air anymore, and Sandor was growing more and more agitated. What if the Dragon Queen’s conquest failed? The dragons were all right, but maybe they couldn’t withstand this terrible winter… In that case, Sansa and Septon Meribald were headed directly into Cersei’s claws.

“We can’t do much in such weather,” the Elder Brother said, when Sandor told him about his fears. “If they haven’t reached the city by now…”

He left the rest unspoken. Both of them knew what it meant. If Sansa hadn’t made it during the period of relative calm, there was no hope.

Sometimes, Sandor envied the silent brothers. The small isle was their whole world, and they had chosen it voluntarily. They helped the sick and wounded who were carried to the hospital, aye, but they didn’t have to worry of what was going on out there, beyond the waters.

Finally, one quiet day came – and the “quiet” part disappeared pretty soon.

The first thing Sandor saw when he came out of his cell was an unknown but very obviously unfriendly host crossing the Trident on boats towards the Isle. He realized they must have camped on the opposite shore long ago and only waited for the weather to cross.

As they got closer, he recognized one of the leaders. _Thoros of Myr. Not changed much since I last saw him._

Gritting his teeth, Sandor raised the alarm – an enormous bell near the hospital was used for that.

The Elder Brother was one of the first to arrive. His face was pale and grim:

“The Brotherhood without Banners.”

“I know them, as you know,” Sandor said.

“They’ve got a new leader, Septon Meribald told me. Call her a Silent Sister, while she’s anything but, and some other names. They say she’s merciless.”

“It’s not some woman that worries me,” Sandor said. “It’s that red priest. He fights with a flaming sword.”

“And what worries me,” said the Elder Brother quietly, “is that there are not many of us, and only you, Brother Narbert and myself have any experience in battle. And there is a whole hospital full of sick patients that we must not allow to come to harm.”

Thankfully, the Brotherhood was also not a well-organized army. Sandor saw it – most of them were thin, dumb-looking people, clearly driven by no ideals higher than simple hunger. Even Thoros of Myr looked dejected and wasn’t in a hurry to rush ahead with his burning sword.

And then they saw the leader. A woman with milky-white wrinkled skin, pitch black eyes that looked like holes on a horribly scarred face, and white hair. She was accompanied by some bearded fellow whom Sandor vaguely remembered as a Northerner.

“What would you want from us?” the Elder Brother asked, determined to avoid a battle to the last. “We are a peaceful Isle. We do not take part in fighting. If you want food, we shall share our supplies with you.”

“ _Hdrlntrtrrr_ ,” said the woman. Sandor flinched: it sounded like two rusty knives rubbing against one another.

“The Lady Stoneheart says you might be hiding some Lannister traitors,” the bearded Northerner explained.

 _Lady Stoneheart? What kind of stupid name is that? And they take her seriously?_ Sandor thought.

“We have no allegiance,” the Elder Brother insisted. “We are sworn brothers of the Faith.”

Lady Stoneheart pointed at Sandor, who wasn’t even surprised by this turn of events, so used he was to his bad luck.

“ _Hhmmlntr. Hssk_.”

“He was a Lannister man and served their king!” shouted the interpreter. Sandor motioned to argue, but the Elder Brother stopped him:

“These days are long past. What are you accusing him of?”

“ _Klnmstrrrr_.”

“We kill the enemies of House Stark,” said the bearded man. For a split second, Sandor fought down the urge to laugh – the whole situation must have looked perfectly idiotic, would have seemed so for him as well, had it not been a matter of his life and death. Again.

The Elder Brother made one last attempt at diplomacy.

“Even though he served the Lannisters, he is no enemy of the Starks. He has saved the lives of Lady Sansa and Lady Arya more than once,” he was the only one on the Isle to know Alayne Stone’s true identity, thanks to Sandor’s feverish confessions, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together.

“ _Lllrrr_!” screamed the woman. Her scream sounded even worse than her voice, if possible. “ _Klllmmll_!”

Suddenly, the Elder Brother was holding a sword in his hand – Sandor was shocked how quickly the man had taken it from under his robes, so that it seemed like it appeared magically. His own blade was with him too, but even he couldn’t have done it like this.

“I take Thoros, you take the woman, Brother Narbert – lead the rest of us!” the Elder Brother said briskly. Of course, he aimed for the leaders, and of course, he knew sending Sandor against a fire priest was not a very good idea.

Sandor charged at the woman, crossing swords with her interpreter. The woman herself was standing calm and still, as if she wasn’t in the midst of a battle, and laughing quietly. With a shock Sandor noticed an enormous scar at her throat.

 _How could she remain alive with her neck practically cut apart?_ he thought and realized, nearly missing the Northerner’s strike: _She couldn’t. She isn’t alive._

Narbert with the rest of the brothers had managed to drive the main body of the Brotherhood back to their boats. These uncertain, starved men, most of whom didn’t even know what in the world they were now fighting _for_ , were easy to defeat.

 _This Lady Stoneheart must have been bashed in the head as well. Who in their rightful mind would declare a vendetta like this one and in this weather?! Even_ Cersei _isn’t sending out armies just to kill people she doesn’t like._

Sandor dodged another strike of the interpreter and finally managed to knock him off his feet. Unconscious or dead, he wasn’t sure.

“ _Trrtrr_!” the undead woman screeched and launched at him.

“Bring fire, someone!” Sandor shouted, hating the thought. Rumors of undead came from the North, and the surest way to kill them was bloody fire.

He fended the woman off – his blade cut her skin several times, but she didn’t notice it.

Later, Sandor thought why he hadn’t gone truly mad at the sight. Most likely, he was so astonished he couldn’t even think properly.

After what seemed like millions of years, the Elder Brother came to his assistance with Thoros’ burning sword. One swing (Sandor took a step back as the familiar tremor shook his body at the sight), and the woman’s head was now cut clear off her shoulders. She fell on the ground in a lifeless heap.

Seeing their leader murdered, the Brotherhood retreated fast. Some of them, wounded (Thoros among them), were already being treated by Rillen.

“That was something,” Sandor said as it slowly dawned on him what happened. _We saw an undead. We killed her. It._

In the same dumb astonishment, he turned to the Elder Brother:

“How did you get them so damned well organized on a moment’s notice? I thought we were,” he imitated the Brother’s own expression, “a peaceful Isle.”

“I used to have some trainings with the men,” the Elder Brother said, putting the fire on the sword out by lowering it into a snowdrift. “Once in a while,” and then he lowered himself too and sank in the snow almost gently.

“What the fuck?!” Sandor roared, kneeling before him. The other brothers, who had begun to tend to the wounded, turned at the sound and rushed to them, seeing what happened.

The Elder Brother’s chest was… well, it was something in-between one large cut and one large burn.

“Narbert, you’re the elder now,” he said, smiling. Rillen pushed her way through the crowd, carrying her herbs and mixtures.

“Sandor, there is a letter for Lady Sansa in my room,” the Elder Brother continued in a perfectly normal tone, though his voice was growing weaker with every moment. “Farewell, brothers.”

It all seemed impossible. Sandor had seen more than his share of battle deaths, naturally, but the Quiet Isle had been so… so damned _peaceful_! It wasn’t supposed to happen here! His heart ached as he watched life slowly ebbing away from the Elder Brother – the man had been an annoyance with his constant piety and gentle talks, but he _was_ one of the few people who genuinely pitied Sandor or at least put on a very convincing show.

Rillen was rubbing some salves into the wound, but Sandor knew at a glance it was useless. Before she was even finished, the breathing stopped.

_There it is. I’ve lost another person who cared for me. It seems I’m bringing doom anywhere I go._

Fighting back what was suspiciously like tears, Sandor moved to close the Elder Brother’s eyes.

He always thought they were black, but now he saw clearly they were, in fact, an odd shade of dark purple. Valyrian stock, then. No wonder he fought for the Targaryens.

A tear did slip off his face as he closed the eyelids. _Why must good men always die, even here, even on this island of peace, and men like me stay alive? What if the little bird was…_ he forbade himself to think further and stood up.

“He said about a letter. I’ll go get it.”

As if in a haze, he went to the Hermit’s Hole. The wooden door was left ajar.

_No point staying on to gaze at a corpse. Rillen will probably dress him for burial, and I’ll dig him a grave somewhere near the cave he lived in. Under the tree, why not?_

His thoughts ran on by themselves, like fallen leaves getting carried by a river. Some part of him still refused to believe all of this had happened.

_The Elder Brother. Dead. Apart from the little bird and the old septon, the only one to care._

He recalled his first days on the Quiet Isle: mostly the fever, the one that loosened his tongue quite a bit. He spoke about his own brother, and the little bird, and wildfire, and the little bird’s wild sister, and the little bird over and over again.

He had thought before that that everyone of the Faith was corrupt. He had expected the Elder Brother to send him to the nearest lord at hand – both the Lannisters and their enemies wanted his head, after all.

But the Elder Brother didn’t do any such thing. He took Sandor in, gave him a cell and a sort of job, and told him of peace and atonement.

 _I wish the little bird was here_ , Sandor remembered thinking. Something straight out of her songs at last.

It took a while now, but finally he found the letter addressed to Lady Sansa Stark between two wooden planks.

_I wonder what he would write to her. Can it be his opinion on our… liaison?_

The Elder Brother hadn’t expressed direct approval – or disapproval – of Sandor’s relationship with the little bird. The man had enough on his mind with the overcrowded hospital – after he made sure Sandor didn’t force her into anything, he hadn’t spoken of it. With Sandor, at least.

But somehow he doubted that it would be that simple. Hiding a letter (in his own cave, too), telling Sandor of it at the last moment…

 _I doubt that its contents would amount to_ Lady Sansa, don’t marry Sandor Clegane until granted an annulment from your lawful spouse. _There must be something else._

Sitting on the bench, Sandor groaned loudly, letting out everything. The pain from the new loss and his anxiety for the little bird. _Come back!_ he pleaded desperately. _The Elder Brother had something to tell you!_ As if the existence of a letter addressed to her would ensure she would at least come here to read it.

He went to his cell and fetched the shovel. The chestnut tree near the cave was a nice place, and Sandor started digging there.  
It was always like this. Dull work numbed emotions. Back in King’s Landing, he used to polish his sword for hours to get rid of thoughts of his little bird.

_Maybe it would be wiser for her not to come back. She’s too much a child still to realize how dangerous I am. And how useless. I let the Elder Brother die. Can I protect her after that? Her, a fragile little thing! If she stays with the dwarf, I’ll lose whatever’s left of my mind but she’ll be safer with him. She lost her maidenhood to some blasted mountain chief, so I haven’t left any trace on her honor. Oh, but why had fate taunted me so?! Giving me some chance of happiness and rest only to snatch it all back again. No, little bird, now I’m more certain than ever: you’re better off without me._


	7. Envoys from the Reach

It has been four months already since Sansa’s arrival in King’s Landing. Outside the city, the snowstorms raged on, blocking way even for the dragons, and Daenerys forbade people to leave the city walls.

“If you want to leave, fine, but don’t expect anyone to search for you,” she said.

The short elation that the inhabitants of the city had felt at the arrival of the new Queen had already faded. The beauty and glory of Daenerys had been duly appreciated, the death of Cersei brought relief, but now the smallfolk were seeing that the new ruler also had something besides her claim and her promises.

She had a court that mostly consisted of Essosi men who spoke bad Common Tongue at best and who openly sneered at the customs of the Seven Kingdoms. She had three enormous dragons who had to be fed. And although she was trying her best to be benevolent, she couldn’t change the situation: she wasn’t bringing food. Food came via Roseroad: the Tyrells sent caravans that looked like moving towns, protected with hardwood and iron against the wind. And these caravans were scarce – even had the Tyrells wished it, they wouldn’t have been able to send them more often, for money and men were more precious than ever.

There were no open rebellions in King’s Landing, oh no, everyone realized they would bring nothing. However, Sansa noticed that – just as Tyrion had predicted – Daenerys was steadily losing her popularity, while Margaery Tyrell, while holding no official position at court, was beloved again. Not only for the fact that she was one of the family that fed the people, but also that she was truly one of _theirs_. She visited the poor and sickly, met with children, and generally appeared in public as often as possible. The charming lady from the Reach looked much more appealing than a conceited if well-meaning Targaryen queen.

Thankfully, Margaery didn’t try to act friendly with Sansa again – the shadow of the Tyrells’ dealings with Littlefinger was still there in Sansa’s eyes. The young women were civil enough to each other when they met, but nothing more.

Tommen newly-made Lannister, however, was enchanted by his ex-wife all over again. She did it very cleverly – annulled their marriage and at the same time managed to assure him of her noble heart and her affection. Tommen was always following her at court, talking of all things from state matters down to his kittens.

Sansa, in fact, had nothing against Margaery as a ruler – as long as she wouldn’t have to deal with her personally, Lady Tyrell had an excellent mind and charisma. The problem was that the Iron Throne belonged to Daenerys and therefore any open acknowledgement of high ambition would lead to another round of war, and everyone realized that. Margaery herself included.

“I don’t know what to do with her,” Daenerys said one day, meeting with Tyrion and Sansa (she still hoped their marriage could be mended). “She is in truth very helpful as she knows all goings-on in the city of the past several years. And at the same time, sometimes I feel _she_ is the queen and not me. Even though she hasn’t spoken a word against any of my decisions.”

“There are the Tyrells for you,” Tyrion said. “They hardly ever disagree with you. They merely goad _you_ to agree with _them_.”

“I know, Tyrion, you have warned me,” Daenerys sighed. “When the weather gets better, I’ll try to find her some husband very far away. Maybe in Essos.”

Tyrion and Sansa shared a look. The naivete of the Dragon Queen was sometimes astounding.

“If you marry her off to someone from Essos, or worse, _in_ Essos, it will be doom – forgive me for bluntness, my queen,” Sansa said. “She will never agree, first, and second, the Reach at least will be as good as lost. People will believe it a disgrace.”

“A high-ranking Meereenese nobleman is a better choice for most than some landed knight from the Westerlands,” Daenerys said. Sansa bit her lip: not only was the queen angry with her divorce from Tyrion, she understandably wasn’t pleased with her new choice of husband either.

“I fear Sansa’s right,” Tyrion said. “You have grown up in Essos, Daenerys. You’re used to them. Here, we tend to look down on them… even from my height.”

“My brother’s namesake, Viserys, Second of His Name, Hand to three kings… (Tyrion grimaced: for him that phrase meant somebody else) and later king himself, had a consort from Lys.”

“Who ran away back to that Lys of hers because of mutually hating the country and court,” Tyrion finished. “It’s a good idea to bind us to your Essosi holdings by marriage pacts; but you shouldn’t start with the Great Houses.”

Daenerys gave him an annoyed look and left after shortly excusing herself. Sansa pitied the young queen: it was obvious that she had thought ruling would be just as easy as conquering. Nothing like that.

“That’s the danger of big dreams,” Tyrion said. “She was sure she’ll be welcomed here with open arms.”

“Doesn’t she know what her father and brother had done?” Sansa exclaimed.

“What she knows, she refuses to believe. She puts the blame entirely on the Starks, the Baratheons, and the Martells.”

“Where do the Martells of all people come in?”

“Don’t you know? If Elia Martell had been a better wife, Rhaegar wouldn’t have kidnapped your aunt.”

Sansa sighed and rolled her eyes:

“Oh, Tyrion, sometimes I think _nobody_ is fit to have the throne. Honestly. This Daenerys is a nice girl by herself, but how is she planning to manage the Kingdoms _and_ her holdings in Slaver’s Bay?”

“I hope to convince her to grant the latter some autonomy. That way we’ll be rid of foreigners at court and of many problems too. As for the Kingdoms… well, we haven’t had news from any yet.”

Sansa nodded. The snowstorms again.

It was a torture for her, sitting in the Red Keep and watching the wind raging outside. The wind that prevented her from leaving this city _finally_ behind and returning to Sandor – the annulment was granted and, if reluctantly, allowed by Daenerys!

She was beside herself with fright: how were they faring on the Quiet Isle? What if a particularly vicious storm destroyed the houses? What if something happened to Sandor? The poor man had been so unwilling to let her go. And she, too – when she was saying goodbye to him, she hoped to return in a matter of weeks. She hadn’t expected to get stuck in King’s Landing for this long!

 _Now he must be thinking I’ve decided to stay with Tyrion_ , the thought cut her like a sword. Oh, if only she could send some word to Sandor, some token to reassure him of her fidelity! The mere idea of being Tyrion’s wife, let alone getting married to someone else, was appalling. At night, she lay awake for hours, remembering Sandor’s kisses, and at daytime, her eyes instinctively searched through the crowd in the palace, vainly trying to find the familiar tall figure.

 _What if he decides to find himself a wife, believing I’ve left him forever?_ This prospect was even more terrifying. Worse, she knew that for the rest of the world and for Daenerys in particular, it would be a satisfying outcome if Sandor married someone closer to his rank, leaving Sansa free for Tyrion.

She would often secretly weep, consumed with jealousy for any prospective wife Sandor could find. _What if she’s prettier than me? I’m so worn by all that has happened to me; I might not look so attractive anymore. What if she’s cleverer and braver? What if she’s closer to his age? He’s sixteen years my senior; obviously I may seem too young for him._

It was a dreadful disappointment to her when her moon blood came for the first time in the city: she had hoped so much that she was pregnant; the annulment and her marriage to Sandor would have been made at lightning speed in the case. But now she bethought herself: if Sandor left her, it was for the better that there has been no child. She remembered how her bastard half-brother Jon had been treated, and she didn’t wish such fate to her own blood.

Tyrion understood her – even though she noticed he was regretful she couldn’t be his wife. He kept saying that he wouldn’t detain her for a moment when the journey to the Isle is finally safe, and that he would even provide an escort for her when she goes there. It helped her to continue hoping.

Until a new caravan came from the Reach – the first one in the reign of Daenerys.

While Margaery Tyrell oversaw the distribution of food, Daenerys met with the caravan’s leader, Ser Merton Oldflowers, who brought her a letter from the Reach lords.

“It is from Willas Tyrell,” she noted as she opened it. “He says that his father Lord Mace has passed away from a cold gone bad.”

“Is he going to bend the knee?” Tyrion asked.

“Well, apparently, since he sent the food… Oh, yes, here it is… Oh no.”

“What?” Barristan Selmy asked, seeing the horror on the Queen’s face.

_I am ready and willing to accept you as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms; and I am sure we will reach an agreement concerning the Reach supplying provisions for the Crownlands. As far as it is known to me, we are the only province apart from Dorne that doesn’t suffer from shortage of food – however, I do not think we will be able to support the whole kingdom by ourselves. Therefore, I believe an adequate repayment would be Your Grace lending us one of your dragons (of which you have three, to my knowledge). Additionally, I would be glad of Your Grace’s assistance in settling a territorial dispute with the Westerlands: the river of Shinewater, major northern tributary of the Mander, is divided by a border between the Westerlands and the Reach, which is obviously unnatural and a mistake…_

“He wants the _Shinewater_?” Tyrion asked, shocked that anyone would attempt such insolence. “My queen, it originates north of Lannisport! If the Reach gets as far as that, my lands will be reduced to nothingness!”

“There is more,” Daenerys said gloomily and continued reading:

_Finally, you might know that as the new Lord of the Reach I am in particular need of a wife. I beg of you to find me a suitable lady of a Great House within child-bearing age._

“A Great House only! Does the man know no boundaries? Well, at least he doesn’t demand _your_ hand!” Jorah Mormont said with practically unhidden relief. He didn’t bother to remember that he, a minor northern lord still hoping for the queen’s favor, had even less boundaries than Willas Tyrell who asked for an equal.

“The dragons… we’ll see to that. Right now, I’m not letting them out, the weather’s dangerous anyway. Perhaps I’ll lend one – formally. He would stay here, of course.”

“And what about the Shinewater?” Tyrion snapped. “I will not let him have it.”

“Neither will I. It was an absolutely wild thing to ask. Well, at least, we have a lady from a Great House here, so Lord Tyrell won’t get flatly refused.”

Her eyes turned to Sansa.

“Never,” Sansa repeated – much later, in her room. “Never. She has already allowed me to marry Sandor.”

“Sansa, we have three suitable ladies in King’s Landing: you, the Queen, and Willas’ own sister. I doubt he is a supporter of the Targaryen marriage custom, and Daenerys, while of child-bearing _age_ , is barren anyway. Why, my dear, please don’t weep like this. You can take Sandor as a paramour.”

“He will never agree. He won’t want to share me with another.”

“Well, if you refuse Willas Tyrell your hand, and the Queen refuses Willas Tyrell her dragon, and I refuse him the Shinewater, he will stop sending caravans to us and close the borders. The lands will starve.”

“And I’m easier to dispose of than the dragon and the river, right?” Sansa said bitterly.

“Sansa, please, you surely understand what’s going on. If Willas gets a dragon, he will be a constant threat. You yourself always keep saying you want the war to stop for good.”

“And that river?”

“If he gets that river, he gets half of the Westerlands including the capital, and will be a constant threat.”

Sansa sank into a chair, sobbing. Several years ago she had been – not overjoyed, but very glad at the prospect of marrying Lord Tyrell. But now everything had changed. She hated him for ruining the remainders of her chance at happiness.

“You can get separated from him after you give him an heir,” Tyrion suggested.

“You’re thinking I would leave my son, if I have one?”

“All right, Sansa, tell me what other solution we can find. You know that I have never said a word against your plans with Sandor, but now truly the safety of the country is at stake.”

“Well, if Daenerys is going to postpone the question of the dragon until the weather gets better, why not the postpone the marriage too? When communication is renewed, we’ll see who else is available for Lord Tyrell. I’m sure Princess Arianne Martell is still alive in Dorne. And your niece, Lady Myrcella – if Tommen was legitimized, then she, if found, will be made a Lannister too. And there’s Lady Greyjoy, too…”

“Sansa, I admire your thorough knowledge of the Great Houses, but look at this. The winter is going to last for I don’t know how long. Everyone’s calling it the Long Night already, and there’s no sign of it ending in the near future. All these ladies, including poor Myrcella, are yet to be found alive in this mess. I don’t think Willas Tyrell will be content with nothing but promises. He will want his bride to arrive to him – probably with one of these caravans.”

There seemed to be no way out. Sansa shut her eyes, desperately thinking of some route for at least a temporary escape. She knew well enough that a matter delayed was a matter undecided.

“Well, the High Septon still isn’t appointed and the annulment isn’t made official,” she said, coming to a decision. “I’m still married, therefore.”

“Now what? Sansa, why?.. I mean, you care equally little for me and Lord Tyrell, and at least Highgarden has better weather…”

“Tyrion! As if the weather is the most important thing in _marriage_! The snowstorms will pass someday, and then what? Besides, I don’t care for you and Lord Tyrell equally. I haven’t even met him, and you are a friend to me. A good friend.”

“So you’re suggesting we decide to annul the annulment? Brilliant for the moment, but what if Sandor comes and smashes me against the wall?”

“It would be only temporary! When the storms stop, we will dissolve our marriage and I will marry Sandor immediately.”

Tyrion didn’t look very excited, and Sansa felt a stab of guilt:

“Oh… Tyrion, I’m so sorry! I… I never meant to make it look like… you’re a pawn. I know you would need a true wife, as our friend Lady Westford puts it. But, please, help me! Oh, if I knew I would be subject to all this, I would have stayed on the Isle as Alayne, and there would be no problems!”

He gave a tired sigh:

“Sansa, you do realize that when the ruse is discovered, Daenerys would be furious?”

“If no other match is found for Lord Tyrell, I’ll simply run away to the Isle as Alayne,” Sansa said firmly. “Then he won’t want to marry me himself.”

“Where do you get such ideas? The Queen won’t let you just disappear.”

“All right, but wasn’t it her who insisted we stay married? Well, by law, we still are married, it’s not like we’re making it up. And if I,” she swallowed, trying not to cry anymore, “if I can’t marry Sandor, I’d rather have you than Willas Tyrell.”

“You flatter me. Several years ago, I remembered the order was reversed. Well, I will tell the Queen that we still aren’t sure, but we have taken steps towards reconciliation. Like you, she is more sympathetic to me than to the Tyrells. Let’s hope she keeps it that way.”


	8. Questions and Choices

The work in the Red Keep’s dungeons was finally finished – enough walls and columns were torn down to house Daenerys’ dragons. She paid the workers in cheese – the Reach caravan had an entire wagon loaded with it, soft and white and crumbling.

The thought of cheese brought her back to the Tyrells’ demands. If Willas Tyrell wouldn’t have at least one of them fulfilled in the nearest future, there would be no cheese coming anymore. But what would she do? Sending a dragon was, of course, out of the question. She would have readily given him the lands he asked for, but this would have meant reducing the Westerlands to a scrap of a field. To be completely honest, Daenerys didn’t find it in herself to care, since she was intent on keeping the Kingdoms united anyway – but she knew her Hand cared a lot.

“The moment Willas Tyrell gains the Shinewater, you gain an enemy in me,” he said, without a trace of his usual sarcasm. “And in Tommen, oh, and in Aunt Dorna too – she won’t be happy for her family’s seat to be given to the roses.”

Dany felt she was stuck in a swamp, and that whatever she did, it pulled her down. She tried threatening the Lannisters with dragonfire, but Tyrion didn’t even allow her to finish:

“Do you think other people will stand by and watch? No one loves me, I have no illusions, but many people have brains. They’ll think: _if today she burnt the Lannisters, tomorrow she might come to us_. Remember your father.”

Her father was another story. Dany had to endure that nobody mourned him in this country, not even the Targaryen loyalists who welcomed her. The Mad King! Sometimes she wanted to argue, to say that it’s all slander made up by the Usurper, the Starks, and, yes, the Lannisters as well, but then there was Barristan Selmy who _served_ under her father and of whose truthfulness she had no doubt.

She walked around the New Dragonpit, seeing to it that her children were comfortable. “They mustn’t be fed so much,” said Tyrion and his insolent wife and even Jorah. Tyrion had read that a dragon can survive a month on a small cow.

“I’m not going to check if it’s true! I’m not going to watch them turn to skeletons!” she told him angrily.

“Your choice, Daenerys, but in that case they will soon be your only subjects alive.”

Tyrion and Lady Sansa had suddenly realized they wanted to reconcile. It happened suspiciously soon after they received Willas Tyrell’s letter. Dany couldn’t see why it was _her_ blamed for the starvation when it was _Sansa Lannister_ who refused point blank to marry the Lord of Highgarden. And Tyrion agreeing with her, too! Was it not him who didn’t want to give up his precious Shinewater?

Less than half a year had she been sitting on Aegon the Conqueror’s throne, and she felt exhausted already. Her main purpose in life was achieved – and yet she hardly felt any happiness or at least satisfaction of accomplishment. In the seat of her ancestors, she was longing for the humid warmth and azure waters of Slaver’s Bay.

She heard Dorna Lannister affectionately calling Tommen “summer child”. _No_ , thought Daenerys, _it’s me who is the true summer child here. I feel alien here. I don’t like it. I don’t love it. This keep and this city, they are strange to me._

More often than not, she was tempted to relinquish the crown back to Margaery Tyrell, and return to Essos herself. She would still have problems with the slavers, but these would be the problems she was used to.

But she couldn’t do this. It was clear that now, once she had established her reign, there was no turning back. If she handed the crown to Margaery, the court would be at each other’s throats again in no time: Tyrion hates Margaery, Tommen is infatuated with her, Lady Sansa hates everyone but that unknown lover of hers, and that’s only in King’s Landing – what would happen after the snowstorms ended and other noble lords joined the struggle?

The dragons turned their heads to her, awaiting treats as usual.

“No food for you today, my children,” she said sadly. “We need to share. The city’s starving.”

Trying to ignore their smoky whines, she turned and left the dungeons. There were other problems waiting for her, not the least of them being the question of the small council.

Tyrion was still her Hand, there was no doubt of that at least, and Ser Barristan Selmy, Champion of the Crown, golden-clasped, was still Lord Commander, but she had no idea whom to put in other places.

“All capable men are either dead or have fled the city,” Tyrion said when she told him of that. “You might put Lady Tyrell as master, er, mistress of coin, since the Tyrells are pretty much ruling the economy anyway.”

“I thought you couldn’t stand her.”

“I’m going to _sit_ at the meetings. Lady Margaery at least has brains and power.”

“What about the rest of the council?”

“I don’t know.”

“ _You_ don’t know?”

“I haven’t been to King’s Landing for several years, during which the city has been turned to utter ruin and most of the courtiers got replaced by Cersei’s lickspittles.”

“Maybe I should put some of mine in the councils.”

“Some of _yours_ , Daenerys? You should be thankful no one hears you, the smallfolk are calling you the Strange Queen and the Foreign Queen and the Eastern Invader, they don’t need you to remind them for another time you aren’t one of of them. Besides, whom would you trust with a seat at the council? Few men of yours are both loyal _and_ clever.”

And few were from Westeros. Dany’s Dothraki and Meereenese followers were already begging to let them go to Essos. Only Missandei, Irri and Jhiqui and several others hadn’t complained – which means hadn’t complained _aloud_.

“Perhaps you might want to send envoys to Aegon,” Tyrion suggested. He had actually been some time in the youth’s company, before joining Daenerys.

“ _False_ Aegon,” she corrected.

“How do you know? I was not so sure.”

“You haven’t met the real one.”

“Neither have you, and hardly anyone who has can prove anything to us now. Aegon was a suckling babe when he was last seen.”

“Then why do I need to treatise with this one, whoever he is?”

“Because he has followers. People for your small council and court.”

“Tyrion, if I ever admit he’s real I’ll be forced to give up my throne.”

“Nonsense. You have dragons. He won’t dare to oppose them.”

“If I acknowledge him, he’ll want to marry me to cement his claim.”

“And?” Tyrion raised an eyebrow, and Daenerys stared and him:

“What do you mean – _and_?”

“He’s not so bad. You shouldn’t be worried about polluting the bloodline, even if he’s a pretender,” Tyrion said delicately, avoiding the question of her barrenness.

“That’s it. He’ll kill me off, like Hizdahr tried to do, and marry someone who’ll bear children.”

“I don’t think he’ll dare to do that,” said Tyrion. “Your Essosi followers might not be so trained in politics, but they know the word _revenge_ better than many. Dany, you can’t shirk it: you’ll need to marry someday anyway, if only for your husband to be your heir.”

“I hope it wasn’t a veiled proposal,” Dany chuckled weakly.

“What? From me? Rest assured. I don’t like this iron thing with swords. What I was saying was that Aegon’s probably the best choice for you.”

“But we haven’t heard from anyone north of King’s Landing thanks to the snowstorms.”

“I’ve been to the maesters. They say that these particular snowstorms are likely to pass over the next three months or so.”

“ _Another_ three months? Oh, just what I need. Tyrion, listen. You’ve said it yourself: we need allies from Westeros, we desperately need them. What are we going to do with Willas Tyrell? Now that your wife’s love to you has magically reawakened.”

“Well,” Tyrion said thoughtfully, “I’m never going to give him Shinewater, but maybe a couple of keeps…”

“He won’t accept a couple of keeps.”

“I daresay. But nevertheless, we’d better invite him to talk it over here. No use sending letters with these caravans. They’re slow like turtles.”

“Are you sure he’ll agree to come here?” Daenerys frowned. It would be nice to finally discuss the upcoming alliance personally, but she didn’t think Willas Tyrell would leave the safety of his castle and risk coming to the dangerous capital.

“I’m sure he won’t,” Tyrion smiled. “You might have forgotten – or maybe you don’t know?..”

“What?”

“He’s crippled. Bad leg – a nasty tourney accident in his youth. If he agrees to talk, he’ll send his brother Garlan. That’s what we need – it will give us time. The caravan needs two months to get to the Reach; then, assuming Garlan starts packing immediately, he’ll leave for King’s Landing in two weeks or so; assuming he rides at breakneck speed, he’ll be there in a month. The weather would be better by then, and we’ll be able to find other options to treat with the Tyrells.”

“Can’t we discuss something of it with Margaery?”

“I doubt it. She’s been married so often and she’s climbed so high that I don’t know whether she still thinks of the Reach or only of herself.”

After much consideration, Daenerys did write to Highgarden as Tyrion advised her to.

 _I haven’t secured the loyalty in every of the Kingdoms yet_ , she wrote, _but I am willing to discuss your terms. I’m inviting you to King’s Landing to talk it over personally. I am sure you will be overjoyed to see your lady sister, who is a great help to me at court._

“Better if he underestimates you,” Tyrion said. “He doesn’t know to what extent you listen to me; but if you write straightaway _I invite your brother Garlan_ he’ll realize at a glance that the stakes aren’t in his favor and that you’re only buying time.”

To demonstrate her friendly feelings towards the Tyrells, Daenerys gave Margaery a place at the small council – though not as mistress of coin, but as mistress of laws.

“ _Laws_?” asked Tyrion, incredulous, when he heard it. “Why laws?”

“I don’t want to trust them with coin,” Dany said simply.

Margaery’s place at the council was bound to remain a formality for some time anyway – soon after the caravan went back to the Reach, Lady Tyrell got a bad cold and retired to her chambers. Tommen sneaked to her every day, bringing his kittens to cheer her up.

“Honestly, winter plays a bigger part in politics than all of us put together,” Tyrion commented on it. “We’re getting cold one by one, and no way to trick yourself out of it.”

At Tommen’s insistence, Sansa prepared her mixtures for Margaery, but she sent them with the handmaidens, unwilling to treat the girl herself. Now that the danger of being married into Highgarden was looming over her, she didn’t dare to be openly distant from Tyrion and spent most of the days by his side, helping him with documents and letters. When she wasn’t there, she was in the sept, where Septon Meribald was temporarily doing the duties of a High Septon. There were simply no other people of the Seven who agreed to go to the Red Keep.

Dany actually offered Meribald the crystal crown, to let at least this matter rest, but he refused.

“I am honored, my queen, but I am not worthy of it,” he said. “When the storms are over, I will go back to my traveling.”

He was well-liked in the city for his softness and kindness towards everyone, Targaryen loyalist or no, rich or poor, and for the fact that, while he lived in the Red Keep and could serve in the Sept of Baelor if he wanted, he never indulged in luxury. Quite the opposite. He slept in one of the worst rooms, right under the kitchens and near the garbage pit, and he was only dressed in the simple robe he wore when he arrived.

Some gossips tried to link his name with that of Sansa Lannister, since he was the only man besides her husband whom she spent any time with. But these gossips soon shut up: everybody saw that the man treated her exactly as everybody else, and looked at her as one would at a child.

Dany respected the old man too, even if she had never cared much for the faith of the Seven. He disapproved – she could sense it, though he never said it aloud – of her affair with Daario, but he was always very kind to her, like a grandfather she had never had.

One day she found a corner in the palace to have a small cry – the smallfolk had yelled “Long live good Queen Margaery!” again, the storms were fiercer than ever, and there was less bread with every day. Tyrion was growing nervous, Daario waved the troubles off and said no one would oppose the dragons, and there were no news from the Reach or from anywhere as of yet.

Dany sat on a bench and wept, glad for an opportunity not to hide her fears and despair. She forgot, though, that the corner was not far from the palace sept.

“What is the matter, Your Grace?” asked Septon Meribald, startling her.

For a moment, she was speechless – but then she poured out everything to him. The famine, the strained relations at court, her feeling of uselessness. The septon listened patiently.

“You are a courageous woman, my queen,” he finally said, when she had exhausted herself.

“Courageous?” she repeated. “What do you mean? I haven’t felt so frightened in my life.”

“You are courageous enough to admit it. That’s more than most of us can do. Now you should also try and face your fears, since you know what they are.”

“How can I face them? I can’t… I can’t grow bread to feed the people! I’m sitting on the throne in fear that my courtiers will jump at each other’s throats the moment I’m not looking!”

“Don’t let yourself panic,” Septon Meribald said. “Let’s start. What is the worst problem? Food?”

Dany nodded meekly.

“You can’t give bread, and no one here can, I think. But are there no other sources of food? Consult with the lords. The Blackwater must have fish and mussels in it. Many people are already catching pigeons and sparrows to eat them – why not make it the Crown’s responsibility?”

“The birds are starved themselves, and the Blackwater is frozen,” Dany began to say, when it suddenly dawned on her. _Frozen_! Why would it worry her, who had dragons?

“Solve this, and you’ll move to another question,” the septon said, seeing that she already had some ideas.

“And how do I deal with the lords? Tyrion hates the Tyrells, and Lady Sansa… I fear she might revolt, when she has a chance.”

“She won’t. Believe me, my queen, I’ve known her for long. She has been through too much, and she only clings to the thought of the man she loves. The crown, whether yours or of the North, doesn’t interest her.”

Dany sighed and stood up. She was grateful to the septon, but she didn’t wish to discuss crown matters with him. After all, he was only a peasant wanderer, what could he know of her councilors?

“Thank you, Septon,” she said. “Do you know where I might find the Lord Hand?”


	9. Dragonrot Comes

“Have you poisoned Margaery Tyrell?” Sansa asked matter-of-factly.

Tyrion stared at her. They were sitting at breakfast in the solar, after which he was due for an audience with Daenerys, and nothing had been previously said about Margaery – or anyone else, for that matter.

“What… Why do you think so?”

“I’ve found Tommen crying yesterday evening. He told me she’s worse, there’s high fever, and she can hardly breathe.”

“Sansa, I assure you, we are working hard at least to avoid open war with the Reach, why would I poison her _now_?”

“Well, point taken. It would be better for Tommen to stay away from her, if it’s sickness and not poison. He’s the only Lannister heir left.”

Tyrion glanced at her with caution and suddenly remembered how she had looked many years ago, when he first saw her in Winterfell. Silly and frivolous, yes, but so trusting and heartbreakingly innocent. _Like Tysha_. Hearing Sansa calmly discuss poisoning was… uncomfortable.

“I hope she gets better,” he said. “If you’ve suspected foul play, Willas will as well.”

Sansa smiled half-heartedly at the pun, but he saw she was uneasy, as usual when the Tyrells were mentioned. Nobody had been fooled at their sudden reconciliation, and Daenerys hinted more than once that Sansa would still be given to Willas should no other solution come up.

“What do you think the Queen wants to talk to you about?”

“She sent me word that she has some idea about getting people fed.”

“That would be well,” Sansa sighed. “There are minor riots all over the city; they think that the Queen is trying to get rid of Margaery. Margaery had to go out on the balcony to prove she’s alive.”

“And they’re going on about me again. Those who don’t want to put the blame on a beautiful orphan girl put in on a misshapen monkey. If you listen to what they say in the streets, you may get the idea my only pastime is giving evil advice to nice young people.”

“Especially to the late Joffrey,” Sansa chuckled.

“Naturally. I misled and manipulated the poor good-natured boy as hard as I could.”

They both laughed. It was a forced laugh, mingled with bitterness on both sides. Then, all of a sudden, Sansa walked to his chair and hugged him.

“I’m so _tired_ of it,” she whispered. “Why can’t people just see the truth?”

“It would have made no difference,” Tyrion said, feeling acutely that his chest was pressed against her breasts. “What if they could? They would have seen a confused young woman of barely twenty who hardly knows if she _needs_ the damned throne anymore. A halfman who wants nothing more than to have his home back and his peace of mind, though that’s impossible. A court of foreigners who only follow their worshipped Queen or Mhysa or whatever they call her and who don’t care one bit for Westeros. A girl who wishes for nothing more than to go back to her lover…”

 _Damn it, Sansa, is it part of your “pretend-to-love-a-Lannister-to-avoid-a-Tyrell” plot? I have been with very few women over the years, and you_ are _very beautiful._

At the mention of herself, Sansa gave a strangled sob.

“I feel I’m stuck in this nightmare _forever_ and the storms will never pass,” she groaned. “Sometimes I can barely believe our time with Sandor has happened.”

“Sansa, if you don’t stop clinging to me for dear life you’ll soon have a time with me,” Tyrion said. “I’m not made of steel, you know.”

 _Finally_ , she realized she was arousing him. Blushing, Sansa let him go and wailed in embarrassment:

“Oh, I’m sorry, Tyrion, I am sorry! I… I didn’t mean… I only… I felt so desperate…”

 _It’s interesting how we lose our innocence in one aspect but retain it in another…_ Tyrion thought _. Still, why would she be so inexperienced? Oh, of course. Littlefinger was saving her maidenhood, the mountain chief, most probably, fell upon her with no preludes, and as for Clegane, I gather it was_ her _who seduced_ him _. And the two other men whom she’s been friends with are their Elder Brother and Septon Meribald._ He had seen Meribald talking to one of Chataya’s girls. And to an old crone from Flea Bottom. The manner was exactly the same. If the man wasn’t a eunuch, he was unique.

Sansa sat back into her chair, fidgeting awkwardly.

“It’s fine, I understand,” Tyrion said. “I often have the urge to cling to someone and blurt out all that troubles me.”

“Oh, Tyrion, I’m so sorry,” she repeated. “I feel so awful… playing with your feelings… like Baelish did with Aunt Lysa…”

“Sansa, don’t worry. You are a nice, kind, attractive girl, and, I won’t lie to you, had you wanted to become my wife I would have been very glad. But I don’t love you the way Clegane does. I remember how he looked at you even back then, during Joffrey’s reign. You are the center of his world – and I’m not prone to poetic tropes, so if I say it, it is plain truth. Especially now that Gregor is irreversibly dead.”

Sansa smiled wistfully, and Tyrion collected himself:

“I think I won’t keep Dany waiting. What are you going to do today?”

“Sort the books, I believe.”

“Shall I call for Lady Westford to keep your company?”

“No, Missandei has sent her to assist Septon Meribald in visiting the sick and poor. She thinks the septon will help her. Besides, when Lady Amirle is alone with me, she gets frightened and goes into her shell. Don’t you remember? The poor thing is sure I’m your true wife and angry with her.”

It was true: while Amirle Westford was slowly but steadily getting better, and sometimes she was able to actually keep a decent conversation without constant excuses and “my lords”, she was dead scared of Sansa. No logic could change her point of view. Even though Tyrion hadn’t laid a finger on Amirle, even though it was common knowledge Sansa had never shared his bed and was staying with him merely to avoid the Tyrell marriage – still Amirle insisted on calling Sansa “my lady, the true wife of my lord”.

“Let’s hope she won’t catch any sickness, but I couldn’t agree with Missandei more – Septon Meribald might actually help the woman. Fine, then, see you at dinner, my dear.”

“Good luck,” she smiled, already taking a book.

Dany was waiting for him with a new plan. Though there were no grains and no possibility to grow them, there were the river and the sea – which meant fish and shells. If only they could get rid of the ice – but then, what were the dragons for?

“They can melt the water,” she said.

“Wouldn’t that cause some flooding?” Tyrion asked cautiously.

“The snow’s high enough to protect the city from the water, even should it rise. I suggest you and I take our dragons and give it a chance.”

“Fine. We melt the ice – what next?”

“I’ve told you! There are fish and mussels to be found…”

“How are they going to be found? The storms aren’t getting any better. Even if the ice melts, we can’t afford sending boats. Besides, fishes are likely to have gone so deep no net can reach them.”

The queen bit her lip, struggling not to groan in despair. Clearly, she hadn’t thought it all out. More’s the pity, the idea with dragons had been good enough…

“Wait,” Tyrion said. “Let’s do it this way. We’ll only search in low waters – I hope there might be shellfish in the sand.”

Dany brightened up:

“So we’ll go?”

“Yes. But we must be careful, the dragons should only melt the ice and not roast the mussels to coal.”

Someone tentatively knocked on the door.

“Khaleesi?” said Irri, one of Dany’s Dothraki handmaidens. “Tommen Lannister to see you.”

“Let him in,” Dany smiled.

Tommen walked in, looking close to tears and carrying his kittens in his arms.

“What’s happened?” Tyrion asked, instantly worried.

“Two of Margaery’s servants are down with fever too,” the boy said. “They’ve not let me see her. They say it’s catching.”

Tyrion and Dany gave each other panicking looks. Just what they needed at this moment.

The disease indeed began to spread – it looked like a much worse variation of common cold, with coughing and sneezing and fever. After several days, the victims started to complain of pains in their lungs, or belly, or both. Three more handmaidens in Lady Tyrell’s service caught it during the following two days, until Tyrion realized it was much more serious than he could have thought.

Now no one was let inside Margaery’s chambers beside maesters and septons. Even Sansa was forbidden to have anything to do with it.

“Don’t even talk to the healers who treat them,” Tyrion ordered sharply.

“But I’ve seen worse…” Sansa protested.

“Have pity on me. If anything happens to you, Sandor Clegane will smash me like a fly.”

It was a joke, of course, but, like every joke, it had a grain of truth. Tyrion doubted the Hound would attempt to kill him, with fire-breathing Viserion by his side (although, given the man’s obsession with Sansa, anything was possible). But Sansa was the only Stark proven to be alive, and if she indeed _was_ the only Stark left, they had to keep her safe to ensure the North’s loyalty in the future.

Not to mention that Tyrion wanted to see to her safety just, well, because he wanted to. He didn’t tell her that – the girl was already feeling guilty about her attachment to Clegane. But he didn’t want her to come to harm.

Tommen was also forbidden from checking on Margaery. Knowing he was crazy for the girl, Aunt Dorna kept him constantly under her supervision, which annoyed him to no end, but he couldn’t do anything.

The news of the fever spread like lightning. Soon, people were avoiding the Red Keep for fear of it, and it was heard that they called the new disease “dragonrot”, because of their belief that the Targaryen queen had brought it.

“That’s utter rubbish!” Dany cried hysterically when she was informed. “Oh, how can they be so ungrateful? I’m sitting here and planning the dragons’ flight to bring them some food, and they’re still blaming it all on me!”

Jorah Mormont wanted to say something, but she chose the moment to fling herself into Daario’s arms for comfort, and Mormont sourly looked away.

On the next day, Dany and Tyrion flew their dragons over the Blackwater. Flying was hard – even _Dany_ had to use numerous belts to keep her to her saddle in these winds, while Tyrion looked more like a bound prisoner than a dragonrider. It was difficult shouting “Dracarys!” so that the dragons would hear – Tyrion bellowed it so that his throat almost cracked in two; and even more difficult was getting the aim, so that the walls of King’s Landing wouldn’t get damaged.

As soon as they made sure at least part of the water close to the shore was melted, they turned back. Now it was time for the on-land part of the plan – guards and volunteers from the city, led by Mormont and Ser Balon Swann who defected from Cersei during the Return, hiding under heavy tents strengthened with wood and iron nets, went to the shores to search for the mussels.

Dany, Tyrion, and Daario were sitting in Dany’s room, waiting for the group to return.

“Maybe it was all madness,” Dany whispered.

“No worse than starving to death,” her lover pointed out. “I envy the guys – for the nearest future, they have some _purpose_.”

He had asked her, in fact, to let him go with the group, but Dany flatly refused. Tyrion didn’t know what was the primary reason – maybe she was afraid to let him go into danger, or maybe she feared that he and Ser Jorah would try to kill each other when out of her sight.

Tyrion himself, if he had been consulted, would have suggested Dany permit Daario go on the mission. The sellsword was obviously getting bored – he was allowed to love no woman but the queen, who wasn’t always eager due to her constant bouts of depression, after the actual Return there were no more battles and therefore no foes to be slain, and meals were getting more and more ascetic as food was being given out to the smallfolk and Dany forbade her court to feast. Daario Naharis counted no day as lived without loving a woman, slaying a foe and eating a fine meal. He loved Daenerys, as much as someone like him could, but not so much as to change his ways so drastically.

Searching for mussels would have provided, if meager, a challenge.

 _In the long run, Ser Jorah might still have a chance_ , Tyrion mused. _If he returns alive today, that is_.

A loud bell broke the silence, and Dany jumped in fear.

“What is it?” she whispered.

The bell continued to toll, somberly and menacingly.

 _Someone’s dead or enemies are coming_.

“Allow me to find out,” Daario’s eyes lit up, and Tyrion could see the man was _hoping_ it would be enemies. Dany only nodded, her lips a tight line. If there was a battle – no matter with whom – it wouldn’t be easy for her. They had two tamed dragons, true, but her army was hungry (especially the Westerosi part) and disheartened (especially the Essosi part).

Half an hour later, Daario returned. His eyes had lost their gleam, but Tyrion barely stifled an enormous sigh of relief.

“It’s no battle,” he announced. “Lady Margaery Tyrell is dead.”


	10. Farewell to the Rose

“A statue?” Morl, head of the city’s candle-makers, stared at Tyrion as if the Hand of the Queen was getting soft in the head.

“Exactly. Do we have enough wax for a life-size statue of Lady Tyrell?”

“If I may ask, my lord – why wax?”

“It will be easier to paint and to get a better likeness. With a wooden or marble statue, people will sooner grasp the difference.”

“But, my lord, why do we need a statue so pressingly at all?”

“Haven’t you heard the latest news? The dragonrot, you know? It’s spreading at an alarming speed. Already ten handmaidens, two maesters, three septas and seven pageboys are down, despite all precautions. Eight of them are dead, not counting Lady Margaery. I’m starting to behave almost like Stannis Baratheon’s fire woman and burn the dead bodies, or else there will be no stop to it.”

“What… My lord, but the burial?..”

“That’s where you come in. We are going to have a splendid funeral, a funeral worthy of a queen, so that the smallfolk would be appeased, but the Margaery Tyrell lying in the coffin and dressed in green and gold will also be made of wax.”

The candle-maker’s eyes narrowed as he mentally counted the supplies he had:

“My lord, we… we don’t have much, we can’t afford, we’ll be out of candles…”

Tyrion gave him a hint:

“It’s a funeral, not a walk of shame. We’re not going to stare at her _whole_ body. Most of it will be covered by clothes.”

“I see!” Morl’s face brightened. “Ingenious, my lord. Then, do I understand rightly that we only need the head and hands?”

“There you are, finally. Yes, the head and hands. The few Silent Sisters we have are all let into the secret – they know about the bodies being burnt. Apart from them, only me, Tommen, you, the tailor and the sculptor will know. _This is important_.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“The Tyrells must rest assured that we gave their sister every honor possible. Willas Tyrell is no friend of ours as it is.”

“I understand. When must I bring the wax?”

“Preferably right now.”

As the candle-maker left, Tyrion thought when they would inform the Reach. As the caravan had already left and it wasn’t safe for the ravens, apparently, the only way was to wait either for the quiet or for the next caravan. There was a tragic irony in that: the Tyrells would only receive Margaery’s letter in two months at best, while the girl was gone already.

He couldn’t pretend to be very sad – not after what this family had done to him. However, when a blossoming maid of one-and-twenty, who survived wars and imprisonment, succumbs to a fever caused by _cold_ , you can’t help but feel depressed and helpless before the decisions of fate.

Tommen, of course, was brokenhearted. He walked around the rooms like a wight, refusing even to take care of the kittens, and Aunt Dorna had to forcefully feed him at meals.

“The girl’s spell on him was – is stronger than he pretended, Your Grace,” she told Daenerys. “Well, no wonder – she was kind with him and beautiful, too.”

Tyrion tried to comfort his nephew, but either for his lack of grief for Margaery or simply because he was so tired of depression and fear his feelings had gone numb, it didn’t help much.

Sansa’s reaction was more similar to his own – she had the same reasons to resent the Tyrells, after all, but she was startled that a disease so mundane could claim someone so young and strong. She stayed in her chamber even more than before – Tyrion privately thought it was wrong, to cultivate her own melancholy instead of trying to get rid of it, but then, as if practically everyone else wasn’t doing the same!

At least, there was one piece of good news: the mussel-seeking group had returned with no loss of life and plenty of shellfish. Not enough to feed the city, for sure, but more than enough to _inspire_. Daario Naharis had been right – men were given a challenge, and it instantly revived everyone’s spirits. Before long, another, larger group volunteered as a new search party. Not even the fear of dragonrot could keep them from that.

Dany ordered the mussels to be delivered to the city’s inns – nobody in the Red Keep tasted a single one of them. Tyrion approved of that: the smallfolk saw that the queen deprived herself of the food for their sakes.

The likeness of Margaery was finished in a week – a human-sized plush doll with wax hands and wax face, and hair donated by a woman from Flea Bottom. Tyrion personally chose her for the hair color and explained that Lady Tyrell had lost all her hair during sickness, and it wouldn’t be fitting for her to be bald at the funeral. As dragonrot by now was surrounded with hundreds of legends, the woman believed every word.

“The poor Lady Rose! So young! So kind!” she sighed. “I remember her, how she visited us, how bright and sweet she looked! She gave me a loaf of bread once, she, herself!”

 _You’d have had a lot more loaves if Lady Rose’s kin hadn’t closed the Roseroad_ , Tyrion thought, but didn’t bring it up – who would believe him?

When the doll was painted and dressed, Tyrion called Tommen to check the resemblance. The boy didn’t even spare a glance.

“It’s a _doll_ ,” he said. “Not one bit like her.”

Personally, Tyrion agreed with him. The fake Margaery looked more like Margaery than the real one. The hair (washed and curled) was a perfect shade of honey brown, the round waxen cheeks were beautifully pink, the red mouth was more attractive than Margaery’s in her lifetime (she had a habit of biting her lips when very nervous and when nobody saw, so the imprisonment didn’t serve her well), and the hands looked as delicate as petals (the real ones had been worn out by hunger, work with the poor, and later the dragonrot).

Still, it was what people needed to see.

They forgot the illness, forgot their resentment of the Dragon Queen, forgot everything – as they crowded in the Great Sept. Tyrion grudgingly attended the funeral as well, Sansa and Amirle Westford by his side (the latter, as Missandei said, met with Margaery a couple of times and insisted on paying her respects to “the kind Lady Tyrell”).

Dany was the first to talk, telling people of how Margaery had aided her with her reign.

“At one time, I offered her the crown she had won with love of her people, but she refused,” she announced. “She said she had bent the knee to a trueborn monarch and would not go against me.”

“Where did this one come from?” Tyrion hissed. He could allow himself to say it aloud, because he stood away from the crowd, in the shadows, to avoid provoking them into taunts. “A Tyrell could have thought of it, but _Daenerys_!”

“Can’t she understand hearing it is like eating too much sugar at once?” Sansa agreed. “As if it wasn’t her who confessed to us every day how Margaery’s stealing her crown!”

“But people need sugar, at this time, my lady,” Amirle’s small voice suddenly said. “Excuse me, my lady, please… I meant to say they’re better when they hear it.”

Tyrion looked at her. It was the first time Amirle appeared in public, posing, to prevent questions, as Sansa’s handmaiden. He had thought it would make her worse, but apparently the result was the opposite.

“How do you know?” Sansa asked.

“I’ve seen the kind Lady Tyrell, my lady,” the woman said. “She was very kind, always, and always smiling, my lady, even when everything was clearly bad, but people liked it and liked her, my lady.”

Tyrion groaned:

“ _Lady Westford_! That ‘every-fifth-time’ rule applies to Sansa as well.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she collected herself and was silent for the rest of Dany’s speech. Tyrion regretted his outburst – it was just so annoying that a third of Amirle’s words was “my lady”; but he could have suffered through it for a while. Amirle rarely talked so willingly or so much.

After Dany, it was Septon Meribald’s turn, who, too, praised Margaery’s courage and gentle heart. Sansa’s face was sourer than ever, and Tyrion knew his own was as well. Amirle, though, seemed touched with his speech more than with Dany’s, and wiped her eyes several times.

When she noticed she was looking, she was quick to burst into another flow of apologies:

“Forgive, my lord, please. I know you haven’t liked the kind Lady Tyrell, but she had been kind to me. Forgive me.”

The air somehow managed to be both cold and stuffy, Tyrion was tired of standing still, people were just so noisy, and the last thing he needed was Amirle with her pleas for forgiveness.

“Calm down, Lady Westford, _please_ ,” he said, and she closed her mouth in half-sentence, blushing guiltily.

Dany took over again. Tyrion vaguely heard her promise to erect a marble statue of Margaery and to name something in her honor – a street or a tower, he wasn’t listening close.

After the ceremony itself, there was a small commemoration feast, with the mussels from the Blackwater and dried fruits from the Reach. Tyrion thought it was a stupid idea – so much food was gulped down at once, and no one thought if they would have enough for the future.

During the feast, however, he left Amirle to Sansa’s care and sat next to Daenerys to discuss what would they do now.

“I didn’t like Lady Margaery, but you know how I needed her at court,” Dany said. “She was the one who knew everything about the city and people. Who lives where, who likes what… everything. I don’t know how I’ll manage without her.”

“You need a master of whisperers,” Tyrion said grimly, “and Varys, as far as I know, had left to serve the pretender Aegon. He had been here since your father’s times – I don’t know who can replace him.”

“Is nobody fit for the job?”

“Nobody at court. As I’ve said, Daenerys, all clever people had either deserted long ago or died.”

“At court?” Dany was quick to hear the slip. “Do you mean you know someone from the city who’d be able to help me?”

“If only you won’t shy away from accepting an owner of a whorehouse into your service.”

Dany was unfazed:

“Tell me.”

“She’s a born Summer Islander. Name’s Chataya. I do believe she worked for Varys, but in these storms I doubt she’ll still working for him. Anyway, although her own house is for the elite, she knows everyone in the Street of Silk, and who knows the Street of Silk knows King’s Landing.”

“Are you sure she’s alive?”

“Sure? Your own men are visiting her regularly. They like to see someone who’s not from Westeros. Especially if that ‘someone’ has a crowd of lovely girls for the guests.”

“Won’t my subjects be even more upset than now if I hire that Chataya of yours?”

“Why, she doesn’t need to be at court and certainly doesn’t need to be acknowledged as member of the council. There are some secret passages to reach her unnoticed. If Chataya’s your friend, you will know the minds of your subjects better than Margaery who used to go to Flea Bottom on foot and talk to peasants.”

It was the best solution Tyrion could think of at this time. Chataya managed to survive, and her girls managed to retain their bloom and attractiveness – which certainly said something about her brains. And Daenerys badly needed informers in the city.

“Fine. Bring her here through one of these passages you speak of, and I shall talk to her myself.”

While Tyrion was talking to Dany, Sansa had the unhappy task of entertaining Amirle. The woman was way better than in the first days, but she still considered herself belonging to Tyrion and cowered in fear before “my lord’s true wife”.

Sansa resorted to the only topic she knew that everyone would be happy to speak about.

“Tell me about your childhood home, Lady Westford.”

Tyrion insisted they call her by her maiden title to show she was a respected woman now.

“I-I,” Amirle swallowed. “I was born in Marrock’s Hill, my lady, that’s our house’s seat.”

“Where is it?” Sansa managed a smile.

“In the Westerlands. Two hours’ ride from Kayce – the Kennings are our direct overlords. It’s said we’re related to them, that a bastard called Marrock said that as long as he’s a Hill, he might live on a hill as well, and chose a place and built a small castle.”

“Really? How interesting.”

“But it’s not truly right,” Amirle continued. She didn’t notice Sansa’s obviously feigned interest, or maybe she preferred not to notice. Either way, it was better than sitting in a nervous silence as they usually did. “We’re landed knights, my great-grandfather was given the castle by Lord Kenning, for his bravery during the Battle of Wendwater Bridge. It’s a lovely castle, still, I think. It’s very white, not like this Keep, and has a garden.”

“Oh. Sounds very nice. Do you have any family, Lady Westford?”

That was a mistake. Amirle colored:

“My family was my lord husband, and now I’m at the disposal of your lord husband who overpowered him in battle.”

Even her voice changed when she lapsed into this trance: lively and joyful a few moments ago, it became a dull monotone.

“I’m sorry, I meant to ask about your Westford kin,” Sansa tried to remedy the situation, but knew it was futile.

 _It’s a shame that Gregor Clegane didn’t die a more horrible death. He deserved a thousand, for what he had done. To Sandor, to Prince Oberyn, to Amirle, to everybody_. Compared to what became of Amirle, even what Sansa went through in the mountain tribes had paled. The chief of the tribe had once forced her to share his bed, but at least he was doing it only because tribesmen, like the Ironborn, knew no other way, and he quickly set her aside for Mya. She had to aid the tribe’s women in cooking and sewing, and she wasn’t treated much different from them. _If it had taken me months at Saltpans to recover after this, how long will it be till Amirle heals – if she heals? Gregor Clegane wasn’t merely seeking his pleasure. He wanted to break the woman, to ruin her whole soul, to stomp out everything that makes one human – and he had managed to do so, almost completely._

Sansa had truly wanted to help Amirle – had it not been for the girl frightened to death of her. Realizing she would only scare her more, Sansa tried to manage an air of forced “normal” politeness – which, of course, was dreadfully hard.

It could only be hoped that the combined efforts of Tyrion, Septon Meribald and that Essosi girl in the Queen’s service would bring the desired effect. Since Amirle had started talking, after all, there was still hope she could be fully recovered.


	11. The Mother Rhoyne

“They say it is better to reach King’s Landing by water, as your new queen has proved,” Lady Nym said. “By the time we get there, the weather shall be fine. Oh, isn’t she lovely?”

“She is,” Rosamund said dutifully, with a dazzling smile she had practiced several days. For safety, Rosamund was going to pose as the princess until they would arrive in the capital.

Myrcella was doubtful. The “she” in question was their ship, the _Mother Rhoyne_ , built with a lot of help from Greenblood orphans and named appropriately. It was nice-looking, beautifully painted and all, but it was _small_. The Dornish had had little to no experience at sea since Princess Nymeria Martell had burned her ships.

“Is it safe?” Myrcella whispered.

“The escorting fleet has larger ships,” Ser Gulian said. “We need to be on the smallest one for the sake of disguise. Nobody will look for you there, my lady.”

Ser Gulian and Lady Nymeria were paramours – during her stay in Dorne Myrcella had learned that here people were very easy-going with relationships. Princess Arianne didn’t hide her tumultuous love life from the court, and nor did the Sand Snakes; and calling each other _paramours_ was making it almost official. It was practically like salt wives for the ironborn, only the paramours were always made willingly.

For several years, Myrcella’s departure had been hindered, as she was, despite everything, safer in Dorne, until now. Messengers came from Lord Willas Tyrell: Myrcella’s mother was dead, and Daenerys Targaryen claimed the throne, with Tyrion Lannister as her Hand. Rumors said that Tommen was spared, renamed Lannister and proclaimed heir to Casterly Rock, should Tyrion die childless.

Myrcella didn’t know how to react to the news. On one hand, she had missed her cheerful uncle and her baby brother (well, not so much a baby anymore, but she called him this to differ him from Joffrey). On the other… so many people from her family were dead, and there was very disturbing gossip as to who killed them. It was said Uncle Tyrion poisoned Joffrey, then shot grandfather, and Uncle Kevan too, and now he came and killed his own sister. Uncle Jaime wasn’t killed, but it was a meager consolation as he had simply vanished without a trace.

 _I don’t believe what they say about Uncle Tyrion_ , Myrcella thought furiously, watching her things being carried onto the ship. _Joffrey was… terrible, but Uncle would never harm him! Someone must have framed him, I am sure of it._ Trystane told her many stories about politics: after an important murder, the real culprit was often never found, powerful people just found somebody convenient to blame. And poor Uncle Tyrion, with his deformities, was very convenient.

Still, it didn’t change the fact that Joffrey, grandfather, Uncle Kevan, and lastly Mother had died horrible deaths. To be honest, Myrcella couldn’t _honestly_ grieve for all of them – Joffrey had loved either to frighten her to shivers with his cruelties, threaten her, or at best to show his superiority over his siblings, and grandfather had never been… well, _grandfatherly_. He had been very clever, and Myrcella, as many others, had been in awe of him, but he had always been cold with his family. Even his gifts were, though always precious and expensive, given in a politely distant way, like some _debts_ he paid merely because he was a Lannister. There was one single time when he had snapped out of this – she was eight, visiting Casterly Rock and playing on the floor near grandfather’s study. He was going past her with a pile of papers, but suddenly stopped to ruffle her hair, give a very thin smile and say “You have Joanna’s curls, you know”.  
  
Mother had been nice to her, but it was mostly Joffrey she gushed over, and Myrcella was even scared that she would turn out the same way if she spent more time with Mother. Uncle Kevan, now, he was very kind, and Aunt Dorna, but she had seen them rarely.

“I’m so sorry you’re going,” Trystane said. Myrcella smiled at him sadly, swallowing her tears – she had long taught herself not to cry. They had been scheduled to marry, but after the Dragon Queen’s rise to power Prince Doran hadn’t wanted to deal with the Lannisters anymore. Still, as Myrcella stayed on in Dorne and Trystane wasn’t betrothed to anyone else yet, they continued their friendship – _courtship_ , as Septa Eglantine had insistently called it when she was alive. They even practiced kissing – several times, even twice after Myrcella’s injury.

“I like you, it doesn’t matter what you look like,” Trystane had said.

The injury had been the turning point, though – no diplomacy would persuade Prince Doran to accept their match now. Myrcella often bitterly thought that she looked like Joffrey’s Hound – half of her face savaged, and an ear missing.

 _Well, there’s always the septry_ , she guessed. It would be hard, though – she had truly wanted to marry, preferably Trystane. She wanted to be a lady of her own castle, with no Joffrey to bully her and no foolish schemers like Arianne to tell her what to do. And she wanted a husband who’d be nice and play cyvasse with her.

They stood aboard, watching Trystane and his escort becoming smaller as the _Mother Rhoyne_ lazily floated north. Rosamund in a splendid crimson-and-gold dress, and Myrcella in the modest outfit of a handmaiden. As Lady Nymeria said, it would hardly fool anyone who knows the former Baratheon princess well, since word had spread about her injury, but the disguise would serve for petty lords who usually only notice the hair and dress.

Lady Nymeria wasn’t the ideal traveling companion. She hated the Lannisters – and Myrcella knew, even though her heart still rebelled against it, that she was in truth a Lannister on both sides and not a Baratheon. Lady Ellaria had forced the Sand Snakes to be civil to Myrcella, but they did it through gritted teeth.

“Her family murdered our father,” they would whisper to each other when they _knew_ she was within earshot. And Myrcella could say nothing, because Oberyn Martell fell in battle with the Mountain, fighting for the honor of Uncle Tyrion who was accused by Mother and grandfather.

It had become easier when Lady Nymeria took Ser Gulian Qorgyle for paramour. The sandy Dornishman with long black hair and dark brown skin had scared Myrcella at first, but it was him who turned out to be her most fierce protector.

“Whatever the grown lions did, it’s no fault of the girl,” he said when he had heard Lady Nymeria and her sister Elia talking of Myrcella. “Don’t you think that a snake that bites innocent babes is little better than a lion who eats them?”

He himself had a voice that reminded Myrcella of a snake’s hiss – soft and drawling, but Lady Nymeria obeyed quicker than if he had been shouting. Afterwards, Ser Gulian talked to Myrcella himself.

“Don’t worry about Nym, my lady,” he said. “In her grief and desire for vengeance for her father, she lashes her tongue out at everyone in sight, but she will not hurt you.”

It had been _ages_ since anyone had called her “my lady” – after Princess Arianne’s failed coup, most of the Dornish had addressed her very awkwardly and clearly preferred to avoid her completely. The sudden stroke of respectfulness made Myrcella suspicious. What if the brown-skinned knight wanted to win favors from the Hand of the King? Or, worse, what if he wanted to win _her_ favors? She was hideous and had only recently flowered, and he had the breathtakingly beautiful Lady Nymeria, but since she had learned her mother had lain with Uncle Jaime… with _Father_ , she would believe any depravity of man.

But days passed, first in Sunspear, and now on board of the _Mother Rhoyne_ , and Ser Gulian made no mention of any rewards he’d want from Uncle Tyrion, nor did he waver in his devotion to Lady Nymeria. Myrcella had to conclude that, for once, she had encountered someone who really respected and pitied her.

Her own days usually consisted of sewing, embroidery or playing cyvasse with herself. The cyvasse set, of ivory, jade and lapis lazuli, had been Trystane’s parting gift, but Rosamund didn’t play or want to learn and Myrcella didn’t dare ask anyone else.

 _How funny_ , she thought one day, defeating an ivory elephant with a jade dragon. _Here I am, moving little dragon toys on board, and the Dragon Queen has real dragons. They say Uncle Tyrion rides one. I wonder if they’ll let me try._

She remembered a picture she had seen in a book, of Aegon Targaryen riding the Black Dread. The man looked so small among the coal black scales, she thought it must have been quite frightening for him. Then Uncle Tyrion explained that the Targaryen kings bonded with dragons, the eggs were hatched in their cradles, and they were as much afraid of their own dragons as Tommen of his kittens.

Myrcella had decided to make some gifts to Uncle Tyrion, to show him that she hadn’t believed all this talk of his supposed betrayals and atrocities. She embroidered for him a warm red coat – if he _was_ a dragonrider, he was probably feeling awfully cold in the sky. Myrcella made a pattern of small gold lions and silver dragons on the red velvet, and she thought it was quite nice. She had never been very talented at handiwork, not like Lady Sansa, daughter of Lord Stark, but she had trained many hours and both Septa Eglantine and Septa Ayma from Sunspear had praised her work.

She also prepared a present for Queen Daenerys – a mantle, also with a dragon pattern. Hopefully it would make the new queen like her. She might have heard that Arianne Martell planned to crown Myrcella – maybe she’d believe the girl wanted the throne, when in truth Myrcella wanted nothing of the sort. As far as she knew, the last several people who had sat the Iron Throne all had met horrible deaths. The Mad King, then poor Father (she couldn’t call Uncle Jaime that, just couldn’t), then Joffrey (with all his faults, he had been her brother), then Mother… Tommen was _heard_ to be safe, but then one couldn’t trust everything one heard. Myrcella wished she could bring him something, too, but he never cared for embroidery or anything of the sort. She would have loved to bring him a pet, a puppy from the sand dogs perhaps, but Lady Nymeria forbade it.

After a week of sailing – the ships were very slow, no wonder since the Greenblood orphans were accustomed to building river boats and not the ones for sea – trouble had started.

Myrcella sensed it early in the morning, when the captain of their ship talked of something with Ser Gulian. He was a sandy Dornishman as well, and the dialect they used with each other was absolutely unintelligible, but Ser Gulian came to them looking worried.

“There are pirates in the vicinity,” he said. “In the night, we passed by a Volantene galley that had only barely escaped. And it wasn’t their strength that saved them, but the fact that they have several red priests on board – the pirates were frightened at the sight of them doing magic and fled.”

“What pirates are these?” Lady Nymeria asked. “Do they fly any banner?”

“Are they the Ironborn?” Myrcella whispered, feeling her knees shaking. She had heard that the Iron Islanders were now having a renaissance of piracy since Euron Greyjoy had crowned himself king.

“My lady, luckily the Ironborn are on the opposite side of the continent,” Ser Gulian smiled. “To come here, they would have to circle the Reach and the entirety of Dorne. No, these aren’t the krakens. The Volantenes apparently tried to describe the banner, but they aren’t knowledgeable about our sigils. They said it was a blue monster on a white field.”

“Blue on white?” Nymeria frowned. “The Fowlers of Skyreach fly an extremely ugly blue hawk on silver, but it can hardly be them, they haven’t got a single fishing boat in their desert. The Drinkwaters fly white fishes on blue – maybe it is a Drinkwater bastard of some kind?”

“It might be the Bar Emmons,” Myrcella suggested tentatively.

“Who are they?”

“A house,” she said. “Sworn to Dragonstone. They have a blue swordfish on fretty silver on white.”

“Why, then, would they take so many risks and go all the way here? If they’re sworn to Dragonstone, they live in the crownlands. It would have been much easier for them to wait for our arrival in Blackwater Bay. Not to mention that few people know about your departure from Sunspear, and ravens can’t fly while King’s Landing has the snowstorms.”

“And you have forgotten, my lady,” Ser Gulian added, “that people in service of Stannis Baratheon would hardly run off at the mere sight of red priests.”

Myrcella nodded – it had, indeed, slipped her mind.

“Are we able to give battle?” she asked. The Dornishmen in the fleet were capable warriors – but only on the ground.

Ser Gulian shook his head:

“The captain has proposed turning to Tyrosh to hire some aid. The _Sarhoy_ has a cargo of blood oranges and the _Princess Arianne_ – of Dornish peppers; precisely for this purpose.”

“Idiocy,” Nymeria said under her breath. “Sheer idiocy. I’d sooner fight the pirates. Tyrosh is too dangerous and far too picky to be won with,” she almost spat her next words, “ _oranges and peppers_! Why couldn’t Prince Doran send us with a caravan via the Reach?”

Ser Gulian said nothing, but drew her to him and held her.

Myrcella, feeling herself an intruder, turned to look at the greenish blue sea. And then it dawned on her.

Prince Doran had sent her to King’s Landing like this not because of idiocy. Lady Nym was doing him an injustice. She was just not valuable enough anymore to bother with a good guard.

_But Lady Nymeria and Ser Gulian! They are his bannermen – aye, Lady Nym is his baseborn granddaughter! Why would he risk…_

It came to her slowly and painfully. Of course, the fleet wasn’t going to give battle. The fleet was probably going to turn away – after Myrcella was handed to the pirates to be held for ransom.

_But I’m niece to the Queen’s Hand! How dare they plan something like this? I’m niece… or am I?_

She should have realized it before. The news of Tommen being legitimized as a Lannister were too good to be true. Now that the truth about Mother and Uncle Jaime had come out, she was _baseborn_ , like Lady Nym. Only, unlike Lady Nym, she wasn’t born in the deserts of Dorne, where they cared little for such things. She was born in the crownlands, and now held less value than the lowest-born of landed knights.

The pirates would try to ransom her, but they would hardly get anything. Then they would make her their bed-slave or probably sell her off to Lys. Myrcella imagined it all, and now she couldn’t hold off her tears.

“What’s the matter?” Lady Nym asked, turning to the sound of her cries. “We’re not going to surrender easily to some pirates. Are you afraid we’ll give you up?”

Myrcella stared at her.

“Don’t worry. Remember you’re a handmaiden to the former princess, a minor Lannister of Lannisport – who’d want to look at you twice among the pirates?”

“ _Rosamund_?!” Myrcella whispered, finally understanding the whole idea. “But… oh, please… she’s my cousin… my friend… don’t give her up…”

“We’ll try and steer away from the pirates. If we are cornered anyway, we shall call on our bannermen to help her. You will proceed to King’s Landing as planned. Why do you think we bothered to take your cousin with us?”

It hurt, it hurt so terribly. Rosamund was shy and sometimes outright boring, but she was a nice friend and she comforted Myrcella after her injury. Now it turned out the girl was prepared like a pig for a slaughter, dressed in red and gold like pork is dressed in sauce.

Myrcella leaned over to the sea and became violently sick.

“Did you have to be so cruel, Nymeria?”

“Gulian, would you want me to sugarcoat it for her?”


	12. A New Victim

The evening of Margaery’s funeral saw the installment of Dany’s new mistress of whisperers. Tyrion personally sent for Chataya – the woman looked just the same, as if hunger, illnesses and other terrors of winter hadn’t affected her.

“We have the blood of summer in our veins,” she said simply, when he complimented her.

“And how is your daughter faring?” Tyrion hadn’t seen Alayaya among the working girls.

Pain showed on the tall woman’s usually calm face:

“I don’t know. I hope she’s well.”

“What happened?” Tyrion felt guilty: what if Alayaya had somehow suffered more consequences for her involvement in his plans than he had thought?

“Oh, a Dornish knight from the late prince’s retinue was quite taken with her – and for that, he took her with him,” she said. “He insisted that working here is no good life for a girl.”

The Summer Islanders, who, with their worship of desire, deemed prostitution one of the most respected professions ever imagined, indeed provoked shocked reactions from everyone in Westeros.

“I tried reasoning with him. My child, I said, is never safe, but she is safer with me than somewhere else. I think he would have given up, had it not been that Alayaya accepted him too,” she chewed her lips disapprovingly. “Soon after they left, the late queen all but closed the city’s borders, and then these storms began. I don’t know if they had even reached Dorne.”

“Who was he?” Tyrion hoped that they would be able to have peace with Dorne, since the Martells were so loyal to the Targaryens, and therefore it would be possible to locate Alayaya.

“Ser Deziel Dalt, the knight of Lemonwood,” Chataya answered promptly.

“When we go to Dorne, I will look for him. Do you want Alayaya back?”

“Not if she’s happy. But if she is not, I will…” the brothel-owner made a very audible pause. “Well, I will want her back, yes.”

When brought before the Queen and asked about spying, she agreed extremely easily, making Dany suspicious.

“Why would you be so eager to do that? Whom do you serve?”

“My customers, Your Grace.”

“You have prospered under the false queen…”

“…And the Young Usurper, and the elder Usurper,” Chataya finished calmly. “I serve my customers. I want them to be at peace and spend more time at my place and less at the battlefields.”

Dany raised an eyebrow: there was a certain logic there.

“Have you worked with Lord Varys?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Why?”

“He had plans to put a benevolent king on the throne. Aegon, Sixth of His Name.”

“He is a pretender,” Dany said sharply. “I am sure you know by now.”

“Yes, I have heard so. Anyway, now that the city has you and has been stable for the past months, I am perfectly ready to support you, my queen.”

It was obviously not the response Dany had been hoping for. She had (on the whole) given up the idea of people sewing dragon banners, but she still wanted everyone to be loyal to her and to the Targaryen dynasty – not to their own safety.

After sending Chataya away – formally the small council got reorganized and the position of master of whisperers removed, – Dany spoke of it with Tyrion.

“That’s how it works, Daenerys,” he told her. “There is no ruler who’d be liked by everyone. If he’s liked in his own country, he is hated by its enemies. If he’s liked by smallfolk, he’s despised by high lords. Baelor was weak and with complete lack of forethought but he’s remembered as benevolent and pious. Loyalty can be acquired in different ways.”

“Do you think I will be able to have loyal subjects?”

“Well, you already have some. Me, for instance. I can’t pretend I’ve been sewing Targaryen banners…”

At that moment, Dany couldn’t help but giggle as she imagined Tyrion sitting in a chair, surrounded by pincushions and scissors, and industriously sewing a black-and-red banner large enough to wrap over him several times.

“…But you’re one of the few people to take me seriously and you’ve promised me Casterly Rock.”

“I did,” Dany agreed.

“Ser Barristan, now – he’s a true knight, if there ever was one, and he wants to serve a true queen. You should be grateful he considers you one – the realm has been full of kings and queens, he could take a pick from a very large variety.

“The Tyrells, with all their over-the-top demands, are willing to serve you too, because they don’t like war. They are sitting in Highgarden and quietly being clever. If a war begins, especially with dragons, anything might happen. If they bend the knee, they’ll be rich and prosperous.”

“They won’t be so willing to serve after they learn of Lady Margaery’s death,” Dany said grimly. “There are enough rumors that dragonrot has been brought with me.”

“That’s one of the few things we can hardly do anything about,” Tyrion said. “But, actually, the spreading of the disease will help our cause.”

“Indeed?”

“It proves beyond a doubt we haven’t poisoned Lady Margaery. There has been another case reported just an hour ago, Lady Alys Edgerton,” Dany dimly recalled a slim flaxen-haired woman in her mid-twenties who had been a lady at Cersei’s court but swore allegiance to Dany without questions. “People can babble all they like, but if we had brought the disease, we would have hardly inflicted it on our own followers.”

Dany fidgeted nervously:

“Has anyone of mine contracted it?”

Tyrion could hardly keep from remarking that she _still_ was talking like this – referring to her Essosi entourage as “hers”, and speaking of everyone else as “her subjects”.

Instead, he had to confirm her fears:

“Twelve Dothraki. Five Unsullied. Eight people from Meereen.”

“H-how bad is it?” Dany whispered. Her face had gone pale. It wasn’t just that she was attached to her Essosi army much more than to strange courtiers from King’s Landing – there was another, more serious matter. She had promised the Essosi riches and prosper – while right now, all they had was a frozen city full of angry people.

“Septon Meribald says that most are rather bad. They aren’t used to our winters, you know, especially the Dothraki – the frost, the strange food, and, as he puts it, the shock of being on another continent, it’s all combined and too much. He said, though, that the Unsullied are recovering marvelously – they are the strongest patients he had seen, and the least complaining, too.”

“So my people are in greater danger?”

“When it comes to dragonrot – sadly, yes. You must look after yourself, too, Daenerys. You grew up in the milder air.”  
But it clearly wasn’t her own self that Dany was fretting about.

“What if the disease gets Daario?” she asked, talking more to herself than expecting an answer from Tyrion. “He’s always so careless… What if he catches it?”

 _I can only say Ser Jorah will be very happy_ , Tyrion thought. _Along with everybody else, too. You’ve given Daario far too many rights for a common sellsword._

“He is careless but not brainless,” he pointed out. “I’ve never seen him wandering off to the sickrooms – and would he have there, anyway? There are no fights and no feasts. There is a possibility he might still get sick, but it’s no stronger than with me or you.”

The young woman managed a feeble smile:

“We can only hope, Tyrion. At least the plan with the mussels seems to be working.”

“Aye, it does. It will be jolly good if there are enough mussels to feed us at least until the next caravan,” he saw that Dany grimaced. “What’s it?”

“Until the next caravan,” she sighed in a way one resigns to one’s fate. “The Tyrells again. I’m the Queen, but everyone depends on them.”

“They have never been kings and we’ll do our best to see they don’t start now,” Tyrion said in what he tried to make a reassuring voice. “By the way, how are you dealing with smallfolk now that there is no Margaery Tyrell?”

“I’ve asked Missandei to receive commoners and look after their welfare.”

“Good idea.”

Missandei was liked – as much as a foreign slip of a girl could be liked, anyway. Her fluency in the Common Tongue (as opposed to the gibberish that came out from most Essosi mouths) played a big part in endearing her to the crownlanders, but the facts that she had been saved from slavery, had lost most of her family, and was devoted to the queen like to a mother (despite Daenerys being only four years older) surrounded her with a tragic and touching aura and people liked it, too.

“See to it that the girl doesn’t overwork. She has, I think, more duties than she ever had as a slave in Astapor, and she’s only sixteen. I know you were already a conquering queen at her age, but Missandei isn’t a queen or even a noble.”

“Would you like to marry her?” Daenerys asked abruptly, startling him.

“What? Why?”

“Well, you seem concerned about her.”

“Not more than I’m concerned about Sansa or Amirle, I assure you,” Tyrion said. “Besides, since you rely on Missandei so much, you should watch over her better.”

That earned him a guilty look. Daenerys wished to treat all her people as her children, giving each of them equal care – which, of course, usually resulted in no proper care being received at all. She had been very close with Missandei, who indeed considered her a mother figure, but since then, there was the conquest, Tyrion’s appointment as Hand, reunion with Daario, now the numerous councils with the nobles of King’s Landing – and Dany simply had no time for everything.  
In one thing she was right: a well-arranged marriage would do the girl good. Since she was one of the Queen’s most trusted advisors, any sensible man would forget her slave background. She was nice-looking, too, with her lithe Naathi figure, swift graceful movements and golden eyes men affectionately nicknamed her the Butterfly Lady.

“I do think I’ve seen Ser Arlan Rykker flirting with the girl,” he said. “Donnel Swann is also prone to be even sillier than he usually is whenever she’s around, and young Gymor Goode has been heard singing a song about a butterfly of brown and gold who has flown here from a southern island.”

“Really, why do I need Chataya when I’ve already got you?” Dany said. “As to what you imply – no, I don’t want to marry Missandei to any of them. They’ll only appreciate her looks and not her soul, and she has a gentle and worthy one. I don’t even know them.”

“I don’t know them too well either. Apart from Donnel – I wouldn’t want you to trust him. He has turned his cloak so many times that I’m amazed it’s not worn out yet.”

Daenerys nodded:

“Fine. We can’t afford a wedding right now anyway. Missandei deserves the best, not mussels and the Tyrells’ leftovers. All right, Tyrion, I think it will be all for now. The City Watch has brought a report of a small uprising near the Dragon Gate, I had it sent to your room.”

She tried to say it in an offhand voice, but Tyrion felt that this had been the whole point of today’s meeting, more important than the appointment of Chataya or anything else. _Uprising_. Several months, and people already started rebelling. Not a good start of a prosperous reign.

At least Dany wasn’t suggesting burning everyone involved, and that was an improvement over what she had once been. If they would start burning every unhappy commoner, Dany would soon end up sitting alone on the throne with three dragons and heaps of ashes in the city’s place.

Well, as there had been no alarm in other parts of the city, this uprising had apparently been dealt with. After Cersei’s death, Margaery Tyrell had reinstated the previous commander of the gold cloaks, Humfrey Waters. Tyrion had his doubts: in his view, the man was too young and comely, and Margaery’s favor might not have depended on his commanding skills. However, during the very first week, when Waters had efficiently dealt with unrest during Dany’s official coronation, Tyrion was reassured.

“Your lord uncle had appointed me,” Waters said. “I commanded at the Dragon Gate before that.”

_Uncle Kevan’s choice, then. Much more trustworthy._

Moreover, as weeks progressed Tyrion noticed that the commander’s loyalty lay explicitly with the Lannisters, and it was clearly not just because of getting promoted by Kevan. That, and the man’s golden hair, led to easy conclusions.

“You are of Westerland origin, aren’t you?” Tyrion asked him one day.

“Aye, my lord,” he said quickly, and they spoke no more of it. Later, Tyrion found out that the man never knew his mother, much less who the father was, had been raised by a distant cousin on the mother’s side, but somehow got it into his head that he owed respect to the Westerlands. Tyrion didn’t quite follow the logic, but as it was, he only approved of it. Whatever Humfry’s motives, he was loyal – and, as Tyrion himself told Dany, loyalty could be acquired in different ways.

 _The Dragon Gate_ , he was thinking right now, returning to his study. _No wonder it was put down, Waters knows the place better than anything else. I wonder now, was it a sole uprising or is it a beginning of something more dangerous?_

He opened the door and nearly collided with Sansa.

“Tyrion! Oh, there you are! I think you shouldn’t go inside,” she said, on the verge of hysterics.

“What is it now?”

“It’s Lady Westford. She’s got dragonrot.”


	13. Out of Hiding

The pirates appeared two days later. A fleet of several enormous ships – some larger even than _King Robert’s Hammer_ , as far as Myrcella remembered – flying a blue seahorse on white.

“Lord of the Waters?” Nymeria exclaimed. “I thought he was defeated _ages_ ago!”

“Who’s he?” Myrcella asked. She knew no pirates by name – except for the Greyjoys, of course.

“Lord of the Waters, he proclaimed himself pirate king about four years ago, but then, as far as I know, he had been easily crushed by a Tyroshi sellsword fleet.”

“Apparently, he hadn’t,” said Ser Gulian, tightening the hold on his sword. “Well, then, we are prepared in some way. Our captain will turn around, and the rest of the fleet will hopefully detain the pirates long enough.”

Sun gleamed off the figurehead of one of the leading pirate ships. It was a gilded shape of a warrior woman in some strange helm and with a crown around it, holding a spear. For all that she was scared, Myrcella briefly wondered who it could be. Some primitive pirate goddess?

The Dornish captain was already busy on deck, barking orders for the sailors. The Mother Rhoyne was slowly but steadily turning around.

“Shouldn’t we have waited until our larger ships come in front of us?” Myrcella suggested. “They’ll suspect that if the _Rhoyne_ is fleeing, she has something or someone important aboard.”

“We don’t have time, my lady,” Gulian said. “With this wind, they will be at our throats sooner than we can hide behind the fleet.”

 _Oh, in what way are they thinking?_ Myrcella thought desperately. _Why put the_ Mother Rhoyne _in front in the first place? Why not hide her in the middle?_ She had next to no knowledge of sea or naval battles, her only voyage, from King’s Landing to Braavos to Dorne, having been pretty uneventful, but sheer common sense suggested that there had been something wrong with the Dornishmen’s plans. Oh, why didn’t Prince Doran arrange for a caravan? She had already realized that even she was worthless for him, to say nothing of Rosamund, but why, why such a waste of men who had no experience at sea either? Including the Lady Nym and Ser Gulian who was, by the way, his father’s heir?

 _Maybe they had done him something wrong_ , was the only solution she could come up with. She looked at their sailors closer: what if they were convicts, like the ones who were sent off to take the black?

Someone took her hand. Myrcella turned around:

“Rosamund!”

Her thinner, shorter cousin looked almost wrapped in red and gold, and it contrasted with her white face. Her life in Dorne as Myrcella’s double had taught Rosamund not to show her emotions easily, but in times like these it couldn’t be helped.

“I’m scared,” Rosamund whispered. “Are you?”

“Terribly,” Myrcella admitted. As much as she hated it, her memory brought up images of the Darkstar’s sword slashing through her face and dark red blood blinding her vision. These were the moments she would have loved to forget – she knowingly pushed them as far away as she could – but now they came to the surface again.

She looked at Rosamund – no, her cousin couldn’t, wouldn’t suffer the same fate. She would get the pirates to see reason. Why, there is the advantage of Rosamund changing dress with her?

_I’ll pretend to be a handmaiden, since I’m dressed as one anyway, and speak to them. They can hardly harm me more than the Darkstar did, but I’ll tell them that this girl in red is, indeed, Lady Myrcella. The niece of Lord Tyrion, who is a dragonrider. Oh, I hope all this is true and the pirates believe it! I’ll say it clearly: harm my lady, and you’ll get burned to ashes, spare her, and you will be the richest men in the Sea of Dorne._

She hugged the girl, shielding her from the view of the pirate ships, and practiced the speech in her mind. To be honest, it sounded more like Arianne Martell’s harebrained scheme than anything worthy of a Lannister of Casterly Rock.

_How could Lady Nym suggest I give up Rosamund? She has sisters herself!_

Rosamund wasn’t a sister, wasn’t even close to one, but she was the only person from King’s Landing to have remained by Myrcella’s side and the only one whom the former princess could call family.

The nearest pirate warship was now close to them. Close enough for archers to shoot – Lady Nymeria, with her snakelike quick reactions, pushed the girls down at the last moment.

“To the lower decks, my lady!” Gulian Qorgyle yelled, not looking at them.

As Myrcella and Rosamund literally rolled to get to the door that led to the stairs and to avoid arrows at the same time, Myrcella spotted the name of the pirates’ ship.

_Sweet Cersei._

What?..

Rosamund had to pull her through the door, as Myrcella was frozen with shock.

Was it some nightmare? Like the ones that had frequently plagued her after her injury during Arianne’s failed coup? But even in these nightmares, her family was never among her enemies.

There was surely some innocent explanation. The ship was probably stolen from the royal fleet – where it obviously had belonged, no lesser lord would dare to name a ship after the Queen. Even if Mother had been sick in the head in her last days, as rumors spoke, she would never have sent pirates to kill Myrcella. Whatever her faults, she had always loved her children.

Myrcella remembered how Mother hadn’t wanted to let her go to Dorne, and her heart stung. Their last parting, when she had tried so hard not to weep… Oh, these pirates, how dare they steal Mother’s name, and a ship built in her honor, too!

“What do you think is happening up there?” Rosamund whispered fearfully, looking up. Steel clashed and men shouted on the upper deck, but it was impossible to understand who was where and who was beating whom.

“Don’t worry,” Myrcella said, trying to sound firm. “With any luck, we are in practically no danger, even should the Dornishmen lose. You’re a Lannister of _Casterly Rock_ and niece to the Queen’s Hand, don’t forget it.”

“Of course,” Rosamund nodded – she had learned her disguise by heart. “But what will become of you?”

“I’m Rosamund of Lannisport, your irreplaceable handmaiden, without whom you can’t survive. And, thankfully, I’m too hideous to arouse men.”

Rosamund didn’t say anything. She was hoping her higher-born, more educated cousin knew better, but she had a singular suspicion that men, especially pirates who lacked female company during their voyages, wouldn’t necessarily need a beautiful face to sate their lust. And what if Myrcella…

 _You are Myrcella_ , she repeated in her mind. _She is Rosamund. It is your uncle who rides a dragon and serves as Hand of the Queen, not hers. It is you who wears red and gold._

It was strange – all the time, she had been rather less a handmaiden or companion than a double. Mostly her job included keeping herself safe in case she would urgently need to pose as Myrcella again.

But never before had she played the part in such a situation. This time, if she was exposed, Myrcella would be a valuable hostage, but she would be killed.

_No. Nothing like that. I am Myrcella Baratheon. Or is it Myrcella Waters now, or Lannister?_

The two girls listened to the sounds of battle, clinging to each other for support. Both of them knew that the Dornish were fierce on land but weak at sea, so fright soon gave way to a dull doomed feeling – the pirates would win, no matter what.

“Enough! I yield! I yield!” as other sounds grew quieter, Lady Nymeria’s voice was clear.

Myrcella didn’t even have time to be properly shocked – she heard bawdy laughter and footsteps of several men, and then all of this suddenly stopped with a series of shocked gasps. Bodies fell on the deck.

The battle continued anew, with shouts of “Lord of the Waters!” and “Driftmark!” on one side and “Sunspear! The Red Viper!” and “Sandstone!” on the other mixing into something like a single bloodthirsty yell.

“I have heard Lady Nym hides a dozen blades on herself,” Myrcella said. “But I’ve never known before how she’s able to use them in action.”

However, as the fighting went on, the “Lord of the Waters!” was bellowed more frequently and with more triumph each time. Splashes were heard by the boat’s side, followed by desperate cursing. The Dornishmen were bad swimmers in the best of times.

Finally, everything grew silent – as Myrcella understood from what followed, the leader of the pirates decided to speak.

“You have something very valuable on your ship,” he said politely, almost silkily. “Give it to us, and we will not trouble you.”

“And if we won’t?” Lady Nym snapped (Myrcella and Rosamund let out the breath they had been holding: judging by her voice, she was alive and with no serious wounds at least).

“Then, my lady, I am afraid you will be slowly squashed. Right now, you have lost two ships, to speak nothing of the people, and these little riverboats are nothing compared to my dromonds. Listen to reason – if the Dornish speech has this word.”

“The _Princess Arianne_ has fine peppers and the _Sarhoy_ carries blood oranges,” Ser Gulian said (Myrcella drew another sigh of relief – with him alive too, there was still a possibility she would be safe).

“Oh, please don’t tell me that the Dornishmen sent a fleet to treat Queen Daenerys with a starter for the spring feast. Judging by your speed, you would have hardly arrived sooner. Besides, if all valuables are over there, why is a valiant Sand Snake defending this tiny boat? To say nothing of Ser – I am sorry, I don’t know your name or sigil.”

“This Lord of the Waters speaks like a courtier!” Rosamund murmured, gripping Myrcella’s arm so tight that Myrcella was sure it got bruised. However, she hardly noticed it. The soft-spoken pirate frightened her more than the battle had. He reminded her of one of the Mountain’s men – she had tried to avoid them, but when she came to visit Casterly Rock, she couldn’t help seeing them there. Rafford, he was called, and he was also very nice and courteous and with a cruel gleam in his eyes.

She shook so hard that she thought her heartbeat could be heard upstairs.

On the deck, the Lord of the Waters indeed behaved as he had at court. Only in the manner of speech, that is. Gulian Qorgyle and Nymeria Sand were surrounded and disarmed – even the Sand Snake’s blades couldn’t help her forever when she and the knight were outnumbered more than twenty to one.

However, Aurane Waters wasn’t planning to kill them. He prided himself on being different from these crude and foolish ironborn, who rarely thought of anything beyond their current plunder. If the Prince of Dorne’s granddaughter lost her life at sea to common pirates, the Prince would act, and act quickly. He could find help in the Free Cities – his wife was still living there somewhere, wasn’t she? And Aurane’s plans didn’t include battling another Tyroshi fleet or facing a Faceless Man of Braavos.

No, in fact, he was intending to let them go – both Nymeria Sand and her brown-skinned companion. He could have held them for ransom, but holding a Sand Snake captive meant watching your back without pauses for sleep or food. And your front. And your sides.

What their ship carried – whatever it was – now, this was another matter.

“I doubt it’s anything like the peppers or oranges you told me about,” he said thoughtfully, looking at his sword and the sun rays that gleamed off it. “This _Mother Rhoyne_ is too small. Maybe it’s something precious – a Valyrian blade, perhaps?”

He glanced at the Dornishmen. Neither the knight nor the Snake betrayed any emotion. Of course, they were calm as ice even with two dozen blades pointed at each of them, but he presumed that if he guessed what they were guarding, they would react in some way at least.

“Gold? Jewels? Some good poisons – I hear you and your sisters are experts in these matters?” Aurane was running out of ideas. Finally, he gave his last resort – it was nigh impossible, of course, a valuable hostage would be sent on land, but it couldn’t hurt to try:

“Mayhaps you are escorting Princess – oh, is it Lady now? – Myrcella back to her uncle?”

Lady Nymeria’s beautiful face remained impassive, and so did the knight’s. But Aurane noticed, or thought he noticed, the man’s eye shifting for a moment.

“Roldar!” he shouted to one of his mates. “Search the ship for Cersei’s daughter!”

Now the knight obviously tried to launch at his crew, and if Nymeria hadn’t held him back at time, he would have been soon sliced in halves. The Snake hissed something into his ear that seemed to calm him down a little. Aurane clenched his fist for a moment: could there still be risk? These poisonous Dornishmen are unpredictable…

As he could judge by the frightened cries from below, the girl wasn’t even hidden well. Soon Roldar came out, dragging her after him.

“Gentler,” Aurane said. “The Queen’s Hand will be more generous if she doesn’t get a broken hand.”

He looked at Myrcella. After knowing (in every sense of the word) Cersei Lannister, honestly, he had expected better. The girl wasn’t bad-looking, granted, but there was none of Cersei’s alluring beauty. She was far too thin, and even her hair was of an ordinary blond color with only a hint of gold.

“Princess Myrcella?” he smiled at her. He knew he was handsome enough, even after several years in hiding, and the better impression the girl had of him, the better would be the ransom. “I am sorry for the way Roldar treated you.”

“Where are you going to take me?” she squeaked. “I want to go home!”

“I _will_ be taking you home – or to King’s Landing, at least. I was a good friend of your mother’s, and I’m not going to harm you.”

“But I was going there anyway with Lady Nymeria and Ser Gulian!” Myrcella whimpered. “I don’t want to go on a pirate ship!”

“Princess, why do you think the Dornish are a better escort?” Aurane asked. “Where’s the guarantee the Sand Snake wouldn’t quietly slit your throat to avenge her father?”

“She wouldn’t!” Ser Gulian (so this was his name) yelled furiously, but one of the crewmen pointed the blade at Nymeria’s throat, and he stopped and stepped back.

“I have nothing against your family, quite the contrary – your mother gave me these fine ships, and this one over here even carries her name. I will bring you to King’s Landing safe and unharmed, and your lord uncle will reward me. Be reasonable, princess – unlike the Dornishmen, I have no motive to hurt you.”

“C-can I take Rosamund with me? Muh-my handmaiden and c-cousin?” she stuttered. _And this is Cersei’s daughter! Her mother was a vain fool, but at least she carried herself like a queen._

“Of course.”

_A cousin! Even better. Two Lannisters will cost more than one._

When Aurane first saw this Rosamund of hers, his first thought was that she was hideous. A large brownish scar covered most of her face, as if someone had tried to cut it into shreds, and she looked like a hag from tall tales.

“I hope you are not planning to kill us, my lord,” she said, freeing her hand from Roldar’s – the latter, warned by Aurane, was now being as polite as it’s possible for a pirate king’s second mate. “My lady Myrcella is the niece of Lord Tyrion Lannister, who is a dragonrider. If you hurt us, you will regret it bitterly. If you release us, however, he will reward you. I am a Lannister of Lannisport myself.”

“He’s going to take us to King’s Landing and ransom us there!” Myrcella explained hurriedly.

“Oh. Then you are wise, my lord.”

Aurane stared at them. Once you tried not to notice the scar… The handmaiden’s hair was the color of pure gold, and her eyes were emerald green in contrast to the lady’s greyish-green ones. You are wise, my lord – what sort of a servant speaks like that?

“If you please, proceed on board of the _Sweet Cersei_ , my lady,” he said. Myrcella (or was she?) dropped into a curtsey and obeyed, while Rosamund asked:

“What are you going to do with our companions?”

“I will spare their lives,” Aurane waved it off. “We will only take the riches. I don’t want an open war with Dorne.”

She breathed a sigh of relief, looked for the last time at Lady Nymeria and Ser Qorgyle, and suddenly, as if remembering herself, bowed her head meekly and followed her lady. The Snake and the knight exchanged a look of panic.

_Handmaiden, is she, now?_


	14. Messages from the Sickbed

Sansa explained that the day had been going on normally – she and Amirle had been mixing up medicines for the maesters – when Lady Westford suddenly complained of a slight chill. Unsuspecting, Sansa put another log into the fire and forgot about it, but half an hour later the woman dropped the bottle she was holding and fell back into her armchair with a groan of pain. As Sansa put her hand on her forehead, she found it hot and sweaty.

“It was foolish of me!” Sansa exclaimed. “I was… I was too absorbed in work to realize – if Amirle complains of anything by herself, it’s certainly something much worse than a slight chill!”

Anyway, Sansa quickly sent a handmaiden to alert Septon Meribald and hurried to start the treatment herself. Now Amirle was lying in Sansa’s own bed, with a flagon with hot water put onto the mattress, and herb mixtures she had just been making herself by her side.

Septon Meribald, after examining her, went out with a frown:

“A very bad case. Too much strain was put on her body even before the sickness. It was worse than I thought.”

“Too much strain?” Tyrion asked. “With me, she only read books, and you and Missandei hadn’t overtaxed her either.”

“She has been injured by her husband. Very much. She told me that he beat her and then forced her to behave normally… She continued the pretense even after his death. As I have seen now, the beatings had been much harsher than I believed. Her health is weak.”

“Does she have a chance, Septon?” Sansa whispered, still feeling guilty.

“There is always a chance.”

When Septon Meribald answered like that, it was clear that now it was slim, and Sansa looked struck.

“One good thing, though: she seems stable now,” he added. “The fever is high, but she is not raving, she is sound asleep. You remember, my lady, the case of Delia?”

“Oh, yes. You think it’s similar?” turning to Tyrion, Sansa explained:

“Delia was a woman in our hospital, she had something a bit like dragonrot – the Elder Brother called it inflammation – and during her fever, she fell asleep and slept for a day and a half. When she woke up, she started getting better.”

“Indeed,” Septon Meribald confirmed. “Sometimes the body needs to rest a good deal. I am sorry, my lady, but would you like Lady Amirle to stay here or should I ask the maesters to bring her to the rest of the patients? The thing is, I don’t want her to be moved in this condition.”

Sansa looked at Tyrion:

“What do you think? You shouldn’t put yourself at risk.”

“The rooms are full of dragonrot by now anyway, so the best option will be for us to move ourselves,” Tyrion said. “The keep has plenty of empty chambers, and I don’t need gilded tables and brocade to remind me I’m the Hand.”

When Daenerys heard of it, not only did she agree with Tyrion, but she insisted he and Sansa move to one of the rooms as far from the sickbeds as possible, and ordered them to stay in their rooms without company for two weeks and drink mixtures to make sure they hadn’t been infected.

“The queen can turn even dragonrot into an instrument of matchmaking,” Tyrion said on the third day, gulping down another infusion of herbs.

“Well, now it’s not her fault,” Sansa corrected him. “Now she would prefer we split up and I agree to marry Willas Tyrell.”

Although the rooms they moved to were quite luxurious and almost as fine as the ones they had left, although Daenerys sent word that she was anxious for them to get back to court (via ravens, from one part of the castle to another – Tyrion wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes) – it was very much like an imprisonment.

“We can’t check on poor Lady Westford!” Sansa groaned. “It’s my fault that she’s sick, and I can’t even see how she’s faring!”

“Are you blaming the dragonrot on yourself? Most people seem to think the blame lies with Dany.”

“But if I had been watching over her closer, I would have spotted the symptoms much earlier! And I call myself a healer!”

She didn’t say much beside that, but Tyrion knew why she was blaming herself. She had sunk too deep in her melancholy and her dreams of coming back to the Hound – and she thought that because of that she had neglected her duties.

“I’m telling you, it’s none of your fault. Even the most experienced healers can’t always notice the sickness immediately. They’ve told me Lady Edgerton had been feeling dizzy for half a day, and many maesters and healers saw her in the keep’s halls – and nobody knew she was so bad until she collapsed, just like Amirle.”

He sighed:

“If you insist on finding the guiltiest ones, we should share the laurels. I should have watched over the poor woman better – after all, she was under my protection, of sorts. And I mostly thought of her as a bloody nuisance. Sometimes, Sansa, I feel like I’ve forgotten how to feel.”

“I know it, I have been like this too. Several times… but especially at Saltpans. Even after I got over… what I’ve been through in the mountains… I lived like clockwork. Couldn’t even find it in myself to feel sorry for my patients. And then – the Quiet Isle,” she smiled wistfully. “It wasn’t only Sandor. It was everything. The air itself seems to make you better.”

“I should definitely go there, in this case,” Tyrion said. Sansa’s eyes lit up:

“Oh, yes, it would be so good for you! I would truly like you to meet the Elder Brother, I’ve told you about him already, and Brother Narbert, who’s always smiling and calm but very unlucky, every bad thing on the island happens usually to him, and Rillen, oh, she is such a dear, and Brother Erwyn, I remember him as a novice, he said he wanted to be a silent brother since he learned to speak, and somehow he manages to keep and show his sense of humor without talking, I’m sure the two of you would get along, and Brother Laed, he is…”

She went on and on with this cheerful façade, telling him stories about the Isle, but Tyrion could see that, whether she was talking about this brother or that novice, her thoughts were centered on one person from that place.

At first Tyrion could only remain in awe of her sense of honor that led to her seeking annulment from him – she could have easily remained on the Isle, married Sandor in the guise of Alayne, and no one would have known. But later it dawned on him that it wasn’t so much a question of honor. It was a question of her identity – she was in reality more frightened of becoming Alayne and losing Sansa completely that she was of betraying him.

On the sixth day of their “confinement”, as Sansa delicately called it, she developed alarming symptoms – Tyrion was close to calling the maesters. But she urged him to wait until the following morning – her fever was low and she only had a bit of cough. And, indeed, on the following morning the fever was gone and of the cough, only a slight rasp remained. When the servants came to leave their dinner at the doors, even that was gone.

“It’s all the newest mixture the maesters have made,” Sansa explained. “Rillen had this idea, but she only tried it out on hopeless patients because the Elder Brother and I weren’t so sure… But then I told the maesters here, when I was still working with them, and they decided to explore it,” she pointed to one of the medicines they had been taking regularly.

“What does it contain?” Tyrion eyed the bottle suspiciously. He hadn’t felt himself out of order, but… who knows?

“Mold,” Sansa said. “Some kinds of mold.”

“Funny. I’ve always thought it’s poisonous rather than healing… but then, aren’t they all?” After all, most such mixtures could be either lethal or life-saving, depending on the dose.

She nodded:

“Rillen claimed some of the cases we thought hopeless recovered because of mold treatment. I’m not sure, but – well, now… I was – still am – certain I’ve sailed close to dragonrot. Maybe it was this that saved me.”

“Are the other healers using it?”

“Yes. I’ve asked Septon Meribald and he said we should.”

That day, they received a new raven from Daenerys – but it wasn’t only the Queen’s letter that it carried.

 _We are all hoping you haven’t got the disease,_ Dany wrote. _It’s still spreading, and I don’t know whether it will ever end. Daario has been down with it for three days – only started to recover now, I’ve been so worried…_

“So that’s why she hasn’t contacted us,” Tyrion said. “Probably never left his side.”

Sansa said nothing. She didn’t like the blue-haired sellsword, but she knew she would have done exactly the same for Sandor. What if the dragonrot was outside the city as well?..

_However, the good news is that the maesters are learning to treat it, and recoveries are more frequent now. Lady Edgerton has left her sickbed, as did little Ermesande Hayford…_

“She’s a Lannister, actually – but who remembers that?” Tyrion commented.

_Lady Westford is conscious again, though still very weak, and it seems that the sickness has spread to her stomach. She has insisted on writing you a letter as well; I enclose it here with mine._

_The second group has returned from the sea with shellfish; they managed to catch several normal fishes too. People are volunteering for expeditions again, and I’m ever so glad. Missandei oversees how food’s distributed in the city._

_Again, hoping both of you’ll rejoin us soon at court,_

_Daenerys._

“Well, at least they’re getting better with dragonrot,” Sansa sighed. “Let’s see what Amirle has written. She’s not raving, that’s good, but since the disease has spread to her belly… I don’t know if we can hope.”

The handwriting was shaky and weak, but Amirle had been obviously determined to finish the letter herself.

_Greetings to you, my lord, my lady,_

_Septon Meribald has told me you have retired to another wing of the castle. It is wise, for you mustn’t catch the disease._

_It is not so bad with me. I am a bit weak, true, but I am also very warm and I hardly feel any pain. I asked Septon Meribald if I could continue my work with the mixtures, but he says they would be infectious and I must heal first._

_Forgive me, but I have taken the liberty of continuing my work with the books you have brought. I thought it would be pleasing to you._

_Her Grace has sent me a pot of fish soup. I am very thankful to her._

_May you always remain in good health and spirits, and I remain your faithful servant_

_Amirle of House Westford._

Tyrion and Sansa glanced at each other.

“ _Hardly any pain_ ,” he said. “Worst of all, she’s telling the truth – after Gregor, dragonrot is a child’s play.”

“Do you think we should write her to stop sorting the books and _rest_?” Sansa asked. “It would be better for the fever.”

“No – if she has no task, she’ll just give up and let herself expire. We should be glad she has actually _taken the liberty_ of doing anything without being commanded. Besides, she signed herself as Amirle Westford, at least she doesn’t consider herself a Clegane anymore.”

“Only because we, and you first of all, have been calling her by that name. We could have called her Nymeria the Warrior Queen and she would have signed herself like that.”

“Maybe. But if she stops thinking she had been owned by her lord husband, she can come to the conclusion she’s not owned by the two of us either.”

So it happened that, after some discussion, Amirle’s letter got the following reply:

_Dear Lady Westford,_

_We are happy to hear you are getting better. Both of us are doing quite fine too, and will soon be returning to court._

_Septon Meribald is right: you shouldn’t work with medicines until your own health returns. He is an experienced healer, and it will do you good to listen to his advice. Your idea of working with books is wonderful, especially if it keeps you entertained, but you shouldn’t exhaust your brain and body: choose the lighter and less difficult volumes._

_Make sure you eat regularly, and don’t neglect to take your own mixtures,_ that point was added by Tyrion as he remembered how Amirle used to starve herself. If she thought herself guilty of having fallen sick and forcing him to move out of his rooms, she could do it again.

_We hope you heal soon and completely. When the snowstorms stop, we would like to visit your home, Marrock’s Hill, in your company._

“If we write _we’ll send you home_ , she might think she’s displeased us,” Tyrion explained.

_With everlasting friendship and respect,_

_Tyrion of House Lannister,_

_Sansa of House Stark._

“Our farce of a marriage is an open secret at court anyway, and I would really like Amirle to stop cowering before ‘my lord’s true lady wife’”, Sansa shrugged as she signed her name.

The raven flew back to the throne room, barely visible in the snow.

There were still seven days to go, and Tyrion could only hope the disease wouldn’t spread again and they wouldn’t be forced to sit there yet longer. He would go mad from boredom and utter uselessness.


	15. Traveling Plans

Amirle was sitting in her bed and reading _A Brief History of the Dornish Wars._ The book was so heavy that she could hardly lift it up, and sometimes she wondered what a _long_ history would look like, in the author’s opinion.

The author was a Dornish-born maester and wrote the book just before the Mad King’s times, so, although his foreword promised _a full, true and unbiased account_ , there wasn’t a single paragraph that didn’t contain at least some veiled insult of the Targaryen regime. Amirle could guess some of the author’s theories might have been correct, but suggestions such as that _Queen Rhaenys ordered every Dornish family to give up one male child and one flowered woman or girl to be sold off to slavery_ just didn’t ring true. Amirle could imagine Queen Rhaenys intending to burn all of Dorne with dragonfire if it didn’t submit, but taking away children to sell them to slavers was something not even the cruelest dragon kings would have attempted.

 _A very interesting book, but rather dangerous to keep here,_ she wrote down on a piece of paper she used to keep notes. _Her Grace will not be pleased. It should be better to send it to the Citadel._

The Citadel, of course, wasn’t really neutral in politics either, but nobody took the maesters as political figures seriously – unless it was the Grand Maester in King’s Landing.

Finishing with _The Dornish Wars,_ Amirle took another book. _An Index of Westerland Mines as of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Year after Aegon’s Conquest._

 _This one will certainly be good for my lord_ , she thought. For her, the book was rather boring – mostly endless figures and tables. Locations, workers, dates of discovery, gold extracted…

 _Wait! Did I think it boring? I shouldn’t!_ she bethought herself, alarmed. When her lord husband was alive and when he was away, she was locked alone in his room. At first, she believed it boring, but her lord husband didn’t tolerate it and taught her to appreciate it pretty quickly. Later, she came to like such times: when she was alone, she wasn’t being beaten. She talked with herself, if quietly, and it was relaxing. _I shouldn’t think of anything I do for my lord as boring,_ she scolded herself. Lord Tyrion didn’t beat her or anything, but only because he was so patient. Someday his patience would come to an end. Especially if she provoked and angered him like she was doing already.

She took a gulp of herb mixture left by her bedside and forced herself to continue reading.

The book has been read before, she noticed. There were corrections and notes. Usually they were short, like _271 – Mine drained_ or _Traces of silver (21 grain), 268_ , sometimes longer. The handwriting was mostly careful and elegant, except for one time – a comment dated 273 (something about a new mine discovered) started shakily and quickly became completely unintelligible, finally ending with a large and ugly blot.

 _273 is the year when Lord Tyrion was born_ , she suddenly recalled. And just as suddenly, she had an idea he might not want this book.

_You shouldn’t have ideas. You’re not worthy to have ideas._

What could she do? Ask Lord Tyrion? Nonsense, he had enough on his mind to worry about an old book. But oh, wasn’t she afraid to actually _decide_ which book was useful and which wasn’t!

 _You’re not worthy to decide. Leave it, and, when Lord Tyrion and his lady wife return,_ they _will decide it._

In her notes, she truthfully wrote _I think you might not want this one, my lord, but I think it might be useful for you as Lord of the Westerlands._ Then she twirled her quill in her fingers for a moment and crossed out the _I think-_ s. She shouldn’t have been thinking. Thinking was for the clever.

 _Lord Tyrion encourages me to think, however… But that’s because he’s too kind_ , she mused and grasped the next tome. _Traditional Remedies of Myr, Lys and Tyrosh (Including a Chapter on the Unnamed Diseases)._ She wondered quietly what an unnamed disease could possibly be.

There was a gentle knock on the door.

“Lady Westford?”

Amirle nearly spilled the ink. _Her! My lord’s true wife!_

_But didn’t she sign herself in the letter as Lady Sansa of House Stark?_

_It’s none of your concern if she did._

“My lady,” she smiled. “How do you feel?”

“We’ve both had a light form of dragonrot during our, so to say, confinement, my dear, but now we’re both all right,” Lady Sansa said. “How are you?”

“Strange,” Amirle confessed. “I’ve been so very warm, and my head was heavy, and now I’m cold and feel somehow dizzy.”

“Cold?” Lady Sansa bent over and felt her forehead. “Goodness! You _are_ colder than normal. When did you start to feel it?”

Amirle saw no earthly reason why this should interest the lady, but she promptly answered:

“This morning.”

“You haven’t felt exceptionally bad before that? No high fever? No loss of consciousness?” Sansa questioned urgently.

“No, I think not.”

“What else is there, besides the coldness?”

“I’m coughing and sneezing a little… well, a lot. Had a bad attack of cough a couple of hours before you came,” Amirle admitted, and to her surprise the red-haired woman relaxed:

“Oh. Then it’s not as I feared.”

“What is it?” Lord Tyrion waddled into the room.

“Good day, my lord,” Amirle lowered her eyes as she couldn’t very well bow, lying on the bed as she was.

“Amirle now has coldness instead of fever. Happens sometimes,” his wife sighed. “Does your belly trouble you, dear?”

“No, not anymore. It ached last time two days ago, my lady.”

“Wonderful. Then you’re better after all.”

“And, as I see, you’ve done a lot of work with the books!” Lord Tyrion said, glancing over the piles approvingly. “I hope it was interesting for you and not just something to keep you busy.”

“Oh, it was, truly it was! I particularly liked a book of legends – legends about the Dawn Age and the Coming of the First Men – they were so beautiful. I put the book over there, in the pile for your use – it’s called _The Dawn of Westeros_ – I th… I hope you’ll like it as well. And then there was _The Birth of the Nine Sisters_ – about the Free Cities, I mean – how each of them was founded – the part about Braavos and how the slaves rebelled and built their own city was so very interesting, I kept reading through the night and Septa Kyline – she volunteered for the dragonrot patients a week ago – she had to come and order me to blow out the candle and go to sleep, and I begged her to let me read just a bit more…”

Sansa and Tyrion shared a triumphant look. If their knowledge of people was worth a copper star, their ward was on a path towards recovery. The Amirle they had known before – even the one they had sat with, for example, fairly recently at Margaery’s funeral – wouldn’t have even _dared_ to read about a successful slave rebellion. And there was no way at all that Amirle would have _disobeyed_ a direct order, even if it came from some unknown septa and not from “my lord and my lady my lord’s true wife”.

“Would you like to visit Braavos someday, Amirle?” Tyrion asked.

“Oh, yes, my lord, but… isn’t it impossible?” she whispered shyly.

“Why should it be?” he asked, resignedly waiting for another remark of her not being worthy for traveling.

“But… Braavos doesn’t even allow ships from Slaver’s Bay to dock… and Her Grace the Queen – she is kind, my lord, very kind, she sent me food and mixtures! – but she has the title of Queen of Meereen… and you are her Hand…”

Tyrion barely refrained from whistling in surprise.

“You are thoughtful, Lady Westford, and your mind is good,” he said with appreciation. “But the reason Braavos boycotts Slaver’s Bay is, well, the slavery itself. Which Daenerys has outlawed. We haven’t had any formal talk with the Sealord yet, but I am sure they will not forbid us to visit.”

Amirle positively glowed.

“I have been to many places in Essos, but never saw the bastard daughter of Valyria,” he continued. “When spring comes, I’ll leave this ant-hill of a city and have a month, no, two-month stay over the Narrow Sea.”

“I hope my lady will like the trip too,” Amirle said politely.

“What?” Sansa was roused from her thoughts and for a moment didn’t quite catch up. “Er… I don’t know. I mean, I wasn’t going to visit Essos in the nearest future, I so want to go home.”

“Oh, yes, Casterly Rock is also magnificent, I saw it once from a distance!” Amirle agreed. “I’ve read it has gardens and libraries and an enormous maze of tunnels, and all inside!”

“ _Winterfell_ , dear, I meant Winterfell and the North, not Casterly Rock. Casterly Rock is Tyrion’s home.”

“I’m sorry, my lady, I’m very sorry, I thought, as you’re his true wife…”

Sansa decided not to press the point. Amirle might have been making progress, but she was still far from healed.

“Never mind. On second thought, I could go to Braavos in the spring as well… and we could take Sandor with us.”

“With Amirle and myself watching over you for propriety’s sake?” Tyrion chuckled. “As long as he doesn’t decide to drown me in the canals for that small wildfire problem a few years back, I don’t mind.”

“Tyrion, he _won’t_ , I assure you.”

“Fine, if you promise to keep him on a leash…”

“ _Tyrion_!”

“Sorry for that. Oh well, at least we’ll save a good deal of money, because you ladies won’t need guards, as Clegane and I combined will be terrifying enough for every potential thief or murderer…”

Sansa laughed.

Amirle laughed.

Realizing what had just happened, both Tyrion and Sansa grew silent and gazed at her, incredulous and startled.

“Was I wrong to laugh?” Amirle was instantly alarmed. “I am sorry, but my lady sounded so jolly and I couldn’t help but join in…”

“Not at all,” Tyrion grinned. “Laughter is one of the best medicines ever, Lady Westford.”

Now it was her turn to look incredulous.

“Oh, believe me,” Sansa said. “It is. Now, how about we have something to eat? I’m _starving._ Moving back here today, meeting the Queen, this and that – and we haven’t even had breakfast.”

“I’ve heard the last search party stumble upon a school of shark, so there is plenty of fish for everyone,” Tyrion nodded.

“I’ll go and see what’s there to spare for us.”

As Sansa left, Tyrion turned back to Amirle:

“Well, and what would you like best to see in Braavos?”

“Me?” she stared.

“With my endless thirst for knowledge, I would want to see everything, with her poetic nature, Sansa would like everything, and if Sandor Clegane does join us on the journey, he will go just anywhere provided Sansa goes there too. So the choice is left to you.”

Amirle smiled uncertainly:

“Er… I don’t know… I _think_ …” she raised her eyes in silent question.

“Yes?” he said encouragingly.

“I think… I would like… my lord… er.”

“Well, besides the Titan, of course – I don’t think it’s possible _not_ to see the Titan.”

“The Canal of Heroes,” she suggested slowly. “I’ve read it has statues of all the sealords there were.”

“Good idea.”

“And the Arsenal – I saw a picture of it in a book and I can’t even imagine it being real…”

“What about the Temple of the Moonsingers?”

“It goes with the Titan, doesn’t it, my lord?” she snickered. She actually _snickered_. “Braavos without the Temple of the Moonsingers isn’t Braavos. Oh, and if it’s not too scary – but the books I’ve read, _The Guilds of Braavos_ , and the _Nine Sisters_ too, they say it isn’t – I would see the House of Black and White…”

As Amirle talked, growing more animated after his encouraging smiles and nods and murmurs of agreement, Tyrion saw that her whole appearance seemed to transform. Her cheeks flushed, and her brown eyes shone brightly, and she suddenly looked years younger.

“Yes, that would be excellent…” he said in reply to her last phrase. “Listen, how old are you, my lady?”

“Five-and-twenty,” she said.

_And I gave her thirty at least and thought I was being generous. Blasted Mountain._

“Just the age to see the wonders of the world,” he said aloud. “Now, what else have you found out about Braavos?”

Even her sharp and rather plain features looked different – not beautiful, of course, but one could say _harmonious_ – when she smiled or laughed or talked and generally looked like a living person and not a discarded doll.

 _Shut up!_ Tyrion practically screamed at his thoughts as he realized where they were leading. _Not a single liaison of yours ended well, and you should better forget women completely! Why should you force a horrid creature like yourself on anyone?!_

The worst thing was, should he even hint, Amirle would give herself to him without question. But it would be… it would be even more disgusting than if he had forced Sansa on their wedding night years ago. No, he was in no place to shatter the young woman’s peace again.

 _But once she_ is _healed, where can she go? There’s only septry or marriage. And I would want her to marry someone I trust, and the person I trust most is my own self._

_Stop it. First make sure she’s healed and then think of what to do next, and don’t let your depraved nature get ahead of you. Probably the best thing would be to wed her to some elderly lord who won’t be too eager for bed, and soon she’ll be a free and respected widow._

“Now, I see you’ve studied the books pretty thoroughly, perhaps you can show me the rest of what you’ve chosen from Grand Maester’s collection?” he asked and purposefully concentrated on the book she gave him first – an index of Westerland mines.


	16. Flames and Flowers

The new Grand Maester was appointed on the first completely windless day of Dany’s reign: an elderly man named Welvyn with only three links in his chain, he barely had anything to boast of – except that he was the first maester to venture inside the Red Keep and fight dragonrot after the beginning of the epidemic. He was past seventy, and it was generally understood he’d just fill the post while alive and then Dany would find someone more young, clever and suitable.

The snowstorms were leaving, and everybody’s mood took a turn for the better. The frost was still there, and it wasn’t getting any lighter, but at least people could see beyond their hands and walk without the risk of being thrown on the ground.

Amirle was slowly getting better, and the rate of the sick went down. Practically every week, Sansa and Septon Meribald happily counted their patients to see that those who still remained bedridden were healing, too. The mold mixture and some other medicines, developed already by the maesters and septons of King’s Landing, did wonders.

The High Septon’s post was still vacant, with Septon Meribald fulfilling the duties in all but name. Just a few days before Welvyn’s appointment, he performed a marriage ceremony in the Sept of Baelor – between a young squire of House Hogg and a Meereenese girl.

The squire’s father, Ser Elgyre Hogg, didn’t take it well: he didn’t like it that a “beggar septon”, as he called him, officiated his son’s wedding. He went so far as to come to Tyrion and Septon Meribald and complain.

“We barely have enough to eat, the winter is only just getting milder, and you worry about _that_?” Tyrion snapped. He remembered Elgyre Hogg from Joffrey’s times: the knight was in King’s Landing when Stannis attacked them at the Blackwater, but Tyrion didn’t recall seeing him among the fighting.

“I worry about my honor,” Hogg said.

“We can find another septon to perform the ceremony again, if you think me unworthy,” Septon Meribald suggested, smiling. Tyrion looked at him: did nothing _ever_ dismay the man?

Ser Elgyre bit his tongue: complaining was one thing, re-performing a wedding was another. He switched to another point:

“And the wench used to be an Eastern _slave_!”

“I also used to be an Eastern slave,” Tyrion said pleasantly. “Lady Zhiya Lynqin has been given freedom and a title by Her Grace, and she is not so far from your son in her station.”

“ _Lady_! One word doesn’t make a title!” Ser Elgyre grumbled but didn’t argue further.

This little incident would have slipped from Tyrion’s mind completely – the Hoggs weren’t an important family, a fifth generation of poor landed knights, and he knew only too well how viciously some people opposed unequal marriages. But only a week later Humfrey Waters brought a report of an armed quarrel, as he called it, between the men of House Hogg and a group of Dothraki.

“Several people killed on both sides.”

“Over a woman?” Tyrion asked.

“No, my lord. I found nothing of the sort. Forro, the Dothraki’s leader, told me that the Hoggs threatened the Queen. Well, the Khaleesi, as he put it.”

“What does Elgyre Hogg say to that?”

“ _He_ said it’s all a lie and it was some drunken brawl started by the ‘savages’.”

“But you don’t think it was so?”

The young commander shook his head:

“My lord, the Dothraki accept nothing but their milk drink, and this thing wouldn’t make you drunk if you gulp down a barrel. The Hogg men, when my gold cloaks arrived, were perfectly sober.”

Tyrion frowned. It would be nice to still blame the Dothraki – the savages were unused to peaceful life in a city. Many complained that they were made to live like _dosh khaleen._ However, after Dany announced that in King’s Landing, like in Vaes Dothrak, it was unlawful to spill blood, they calmed down a little. If Dothraki men were made to draw their arakhs, the matter was much more serious than a small disagreement.

He went to Chataya’s and asked her to pay close attention to Elgyre Hogg’s people.

“They hardly visit my place, too expensive for them, but I’ll see what I can do,” the woman promised.

A couple of days later, she reported:

“Elgyre Hogg was never enthusiastic about the Queen, but now he’s growing openly hostile.”

“Don’t tell me he was better off during the reign of my sweet sister,” Tyrion said.

“No, I don’t think so. I think he wants a Tyrell on the throne – somebody like Queen Margaery.”

“The Tyrells again,” he groaned. “How, pray, did he communicate with them? We’re only just now starting to send ravens, and only to the closest castles!”

“He hasn’t made contact with Lord Willas yet, but…” Chataya chewed her lip thoughtfully. “From what my girls can gather, he hopes to, as soon as possible.”

“And we are planning to refuse Willas’s demands,” Tyrion finished gloomily.

“Wylla, one of my youngest, told me that the Hoggs and some of their friends,” Chataya gave him a list of names, all of them, like the Hoggs, poor lordlings and knights, “that they are already dubbing the upcoming war – for the throne, I mean – the war of flames and flowers. As in: what would you choose – the killing flames or the blossoming beautiful flowers?”

“Wait. You said that no higher-born lords are mixed in it – maybe it’s only the imagination of the Hoggs and their likes.”

“Hardly, my lord.”

“Do you have anything definite on who might be aiding them?”

“Definite – nothing, not now. They are careful.”

“Fine, why do they hate Daenerys so much?” Tyrion decided to go the reasonable way. Perhaps there were simply some points about Dany’s reign they didn’t like. Some changeable points. “The beggar septon”, for example… They can replace him in time, especially since he isn’t keen on staying either…

But Chataya shook her head:

“They’re saying that she burnt Queen Cersei…”

“It’s a lie. She strangled her. Amirle was there, and dragonbreath would have hit her as well…”

“And then she poisoned Queen Margaery.”

“What? Don’t they know about the disease? Has the epidemic slipped their minds?”

“Her hordes brought the fever, and she poisoned Margaery and made it look like sickness,” Chataya continued. “She has an evil kinslayer dwarf aiding her.”

“That, at least, is expected. I really should get used to it.”

“They had locked up Lady Sansa, Queen in the North…”

“Now what?!” Tyrion couldn’t believe anyone could think this up. “She has never been locked up! Not during Dany’s rule! Did she have to go to Flea Bottom, like their precious Margaery, to prove it?”

“To sum it up, Daenerys is a vicious and jealous woman who can’t stand rivals in beauty and power and who burns anyone who dares to disagree with her.”

Tyrion rubbed his forehead. He should have known that ever since dragonrot took a turn for the better, things had been going too smoothly.

“What about the shellfish?” he demanded. “It saved many lives, they can’t argue with that!”

“It was Margaery’s idea, used by Daenerys.”

“Great. Simply great. Try to find out who’s behind all this. I mean, unless Willas Tyrell has invented some sort of instant-delivery letters, it can’t be him or anyone from the Reach.”

When he returned to the Keep, the first thing he did was ask Sansa to prepare a speech for the masses.

“Tell them that you stayed in the city to help with the dragonrot, and tell how good the queen is,” he said. Sansa sighed:

“Why, I wonder, is Chataya so sure that there’s someone aiding the conspiracy? Can’t it be simply some gibberish these Hoggs and their friends have made up?”

“There is a difference between idly chatting and discussing something serious, and Chataya knows it too. She wouldn’t have alarmed me otherwise.”

“Well, who do _you_ think is the mastermind?”

“No idea,” Tyrion admitted. “I only know it isn’t me. Oh, and it can hardly be you. You wouldn’t have chosen the Tyrells as candidates for the throne.”

“Will they even want my speech? They might still believe I poisoned Joffrey…”

“If they’re blaming the Queen for locking you up, then you’re the lovely damsel in distress again. I think that in people’s memory the poisoner is me. Ugly dwarves are so much easier to blame.”

Sansa stroked his hair sympathetically.

“All right. I will try.”

She asked two days to write and learn the speech. On the second day, Commander Waters detected an unrest in the city again:

“Some street thugs attacked and burned the Raven and Crown inn with a dozen Meereenese and Dothraki inside,” he said.

“Any casualties?” Tyrion asked.

“One Meereenese man. A former slave, his scarred legs couldn’t carry him fast enough.”

Tyrion swore under his breath.

“The locals – every single one of them – continue to insist that it was a group of some drunken idiots. Which means that the conspiracy has gone much further than we suspected.”

“Or else they wouldn’t have been so united against us.”

“For a moment, I was actually taken in,” Waters continued, “but then my men searched the building. You see, the Raven and Crown has a peculiar structure, it is partly build of wood and partly of bricks and stones.”

“And?” Tyrion prompted.

“It’s very difficult to ensure the fire spreads to the main room. If it had been mere drunks who set fire to the front wall and fled – as every witness tried to assure us – the damage would have been minimal and hardly anyone would have been harmed. As far as I can gather, even if someone _did_ set fire to the wall to distract us, the main culprits hid in the upper wine cellars: the only place from where they could be certain the fire would get to the people.”

“So there was an accomplice inside?” Tyrion raised an eyebrow. “What’s the point, do tell me? Even the Tyrells can’t give the owners a new inn, not in the nearest future.”

“The survivors,” Humfry Waters said thoughtfully, “told me that the owners – a nice old couple, Bert and Dalla, I know them, and both are supporters of the Queen – were upstairs asleep, and they were served by two newly employed maids they’ve never met before. Of course, they weren’t suspicious, who’d suspect a serving girl?”

“And the owners? Are they in any condition to tell us anything? You say no one died but the Meereenese man?”

“The owners confirm it. Bert said their usual maid didn’t show up in the morning, and his wife hurriedly hired two girls she met on the road. They claimed to be sisters from a nearby village, hiding in the city for the winter and seeking employment. These maids have vanished. No bodies found.”

Tyrion rubbed his forehead: this was starting to turn into something like a Valyrian epic he had once heard in Essos, where one song followed another and brought a hundred of new characters to the plot, without any connection to the already existing ones.

“We should advise the Essosi to be on their guard.”

“Her Grace has already done so, but the Unsullied and Dothraki claim they are on their guard anyway.”

“Well, what can we do? In fifty years or so, they’ll all get mixed with us, but the question is how to survive until that glorious day.”

In a couple of hours, Tyrion raised the topic with Daenerys.

“The Essosi are vicious fighters, but in these places they’re simply outnumbered. Besides, we don’t want to lose people in pointless fighting again. We need to do something. Sansa will make the speech, but I don’t know if it will do much good.”

“What are you suggesting, then?”

“Getting your Essosi army out of town.”

“What do you mean?” Daenerys frowned. “They are practically the only ones I can fully trust!”

“Well, at least move them, for example, to the parts close to the harbor. They have always been full of newcomers from exotic lands.”

“So I must move my trustworthy men to the port – and what about myself? Move there as well? Stay in the Keep, with these soldiers who might leave my side just as easily as they have left the false queen? No, Tyrion, I won’t do it. Not now, at least.”

“And what will you do?”

Daenerys thought for a while:

“The Northerners. If your wife remains my ally, I can count on their support. For the people of the capital, they’re better than my Essosi, I suppose. When the weather gets completely stable, I will fly to the North and ask Sansa to form me a Northerners’ guard.”

Tyrion could only hope it would work. Last time he checked, the North wasn’t overly enthusiastic about the Targaryen kings.


End file.
